Bethesda allegedly demanded the name Prey be used.
Prey director Raphaël Colantonio has said developer Arkane Studios was forced to use the Prey name by Bethesda, despite his disagreement and feeling “gross” by using it.
Speaking on AIAS Game Maker's Notebook podcast (and spotted by Kotaku), Colantonio said that using this name was disrespectful to 2006's Prey – which was a completely different game made by a completely different team and company.
“Calling Prey Prey, that was very very hurtful to me. I did not want to call this game Prey, and I had to say I wanted to anyway in front of journalists,” Colantonio said. “There is a bit of the artistic, the creative side that is insulted when you tell this artist: 'You know your game? It's going to be called Prey.' And you go like, 'I don't think it should. I think it's a mistake'.”
Calling it Prey was also detrimental to the game's sales, Colantonio said, because fans of 2006's Prey – a first-person shooter about an ex-soldier being abducted by aliens – would protest Arkane's game and those who disliked the original wouldn't look twice at it.
“It was also a kick in the face to the original makers of Prey,” he continued. “I wanted to apologize to them many, many times. I didn't really have a chance because I don't really know those people. It was never our intention to steal their IP and make it ours. It's gross and that's not what I wanted to do.”
Colantonio left Arkane not long after Prey was released in 2017, citing the name debacle and overall disagreements with management as one of the reasons for doing so. While Prey was received well by critics and players – IGN said it was great – Colantonio commented that its sales were poor and the franchise has been dormant since some DLC was released in 2018.
Arkane Studios IGN Game Reviews
Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelancer. He'll talk about The Witcher all day.