The developers of the sci-fi FPS Prey weren't happy with the game's name, and the decision to tie it to IP Prey partly prompted the departure of its creative director from the studio he founded.
Released in 2017, Prey shares its name with a little-known FPS from 2006 developed by Human Head Studios. Though it shares few similarities with that game, it was billed as a reimagining of the Prey IP owned by publisher Bethesda. But Arkane founder and creative director Raphael Colantonio said the name was forced on the team, who didn't like it.
"I took a little bit of a disagreement with some of the managers with the decision to call Prey 'Prey,'" Colantonio said, speaking with the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences. "It hurt very, very much. I didn't want to call this game Prey, and I had to say I wanted it anyway in front of the reporters."
"I hate lying, and it's sales lies, not a personal lie, but it was still wrong. I had to push a message that I didn't want. Not just me, but no one on the team didn't want to call this game Prey. Our game it had nothing to do with Prey, but it was kind of like Prey in a sense.
"I'm grateful that a company gives me the power to make a game and entrusts me with so many millions of dollars. But there's a part of the artist, on the creative side, that feels insulted when you say to this artist, 'Your game is going to work". being called Prey. You say, 'I don't think I should. I think it's a mistake.'
commercial dismay
Colantonio noted that the naming conflict was typical of the "corporate world" of game development. Not just a creative oversight, the Prey name was a marketing mistake, he says, failing to spark enthusiasm among would-be gamers, as well as sour how fans of the 2006 game might perceive the new title.
"It was also a kick in the face for the original creators of Prey," Colantonio said. "I've wanted to apologize to them many, many times. It was never our intention to 'steal their intellectual property' and make it our own. It's disgusting. That's not what I wanted to do. So everyone lost, and the sales were horrible.
"I hate to be right on this one, but I was right in 10 different ways, that name should never have been the name of the game."
Colantonio said the dispute partially contributed to his departure from Arkane shortly after Prey's release. "I thought, 'I have to go right now,'" he said. "Because I don't control my own ship."
Speaking in a Noclip documentary (opens in a new tab) last year, Colantonio said that Arkane was already working on an immersive sci-fi simulation aboard a space station before Prey IP was released. This preliminary design was inspired by the studio's first release, Arx Fatalis, and like the final game, it was inspired by the Metroidvania style of gameplay.
“None of these ideas were something that Bethesda wanted, but they wanted us to work on Prey,” Colantonio said. "So that's how it all started.
"Eventually we agreed to something like, 'As long as you can do almost a different IP address, but with the same fact that you're on the space station with aliens.' I guess that was the compromise because everything else was non-negotiable. This game had to to be Prey in some way".
In the same interview, designer Ricardo Bare said that the game did not have a working title until it was called Prey. When it started, internally it was called Project Danielle. It was a tribute to SHODAN, the AI from System Shock 2, the 1999 Irrational Games title that Prey draws a lot of inspiration from.
After leaving Arkane, Colantonio co-founded WolfEye Studios, which released the immersive two-suit simulator Weird West earlier this year.