I’m still trying to wrap my mind around how this will work, but according to a few leaked internal emails obtained by Kotaku, developer Arkane Studios Austin is currently working on Prey 2 — a game that was unveiled a couple years back with a sci-fi bounty hunter vibe. Apparently, all of that has been scrapped in favor of an entirely different concept that will serve as a spiritual successor to System Shock 2. That’s unusual, but it’s also incredibly exciting.

I feel like I talk about System Shock 2 a lot, so if I do, I want you to know I only do that because it’s a amazing goddamn game that you should be playing right now. I have no idea how this is going to work, but the last game to call itself a spiritual successor to System Shock turned out pretty great, so I have high hopes for this.

Prey 2’s original developer, it seems, has been tossed out. Nothing they made, and nothing we’ve seen of what the game was originally going to be like will make its way to the new vision. This is an entirely new project with new assets and a different team behind it.

Unfortunately, the rest of Kotaku’s report has nothing to do with what we can expect from the “new” game. It sounds like it’s still very early in development — that may be why Bethesda is being so hesitant about confirming its existence — so we likely won’t hear more about it for some time.

Even still, this is fantastic news for fans of both series. It sounds like Prey is being taken seriously, as it has a very solid developer behind it trying their best to do the game justice, and since we probably won’t ever get a System Shock 3, I suppose this is the next best thing.

If you need even more good news — even though this shouldn’t be all that surprising — Arkane Studios in Lyon, France is developing a follow-up to Dishonored, a game I’ve heard is pretty good.

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