10 Video Games That Were Cancelled Despite Being Almost Finished

Revealed to the public in 2011, the follow-up to the 2006 sci-fi shooter was set to take the Prey series in a bold new direction. Original protagonist Tommy was replaced by grizzled bounty hunter Killian Samuels, and the setting was swapped from a claustrophobic spaceship to an open world set on an alien planet.

The gameplay footage and trailers promised a slick and revolutionary AAA blockbuster. But news about the game soon went quiet. Despite Bethesda’s promises that work on Prey 2 was still being carried out to ensure it was the best it could be, news eventually broke in 2014 that the game was cancelled even though it close to an alpha release.

Stories of nightmarish productions are nothing new within the world of entertainment, but none were as turbulent as Prey 2’s production hell, which boiled down to Bethesda and Human Head butting heads over legal disputes.

In short, Bethesda wanted to buy out the developers and tried to force their hand by backing them into a contractual corner. The studio refused to budge, and rather than settling on any agreement, the contract expired.

Bethesda subsequently handed development over to Arkane Studios, and (for better or worse) 2016’s Prey was born.