14 DAY TRIAL // A rumor coming from an anonymous inside source has suggested that the problems that Bethesda and Human Head Studio has been having with Prey 2 are linked to a protest from the developers.
The inside source says that the entire team at Human Head Studio has stopped development work in November 2, mainly because it has unhappy with the terms of the contract it had with publisher Bethesda and its parent company ZeniMax.
The contract was set to be re-negotiated and the game creators have chosen to simply stop working as long as they were waiting to see the new terms of the deal.
Apparently a number of Human Head employees were fired since then but the studio is ready to re-hire them as long as it managed to reach a satisfactory deal with ZeniMax.
The source also says that the first round of publisher – developer negotiations have collapsed in January but a new round was started during March.
Bethesda has announced that Prey 2 was not canceled and that it was making sure that the quality of the game conformed to its internal standards before actually delivering it to players.
The game was initially set to arrive during this year on the Xbox 360, the PlayStation 3 and the PC and the publisher has not mentioned whether it is now aiming for a 2013 release or if Prey 2 might take even more to develop.
The official announcement, which comes after rumors spread that the game was no longer in development, might mean that Bethesda and Human Head Studios have managed to solve their differences.
It might also mean that a new developer has been brought in to finish the project, given that Human Head has been talking lately about a possible revival of the Rune franchise.
Prey 2 was last shown during E3 2011 and had a bounty hunter theme.