It was set in the same universe and had story ties. So that alone is enough to carry it. You can change things up radically and still be a sequel. Kind of like how RE6 to RE7 was though in this case it wasn't shifting the view points. So that keeping the name made sense.
In the case of Arkane's prey, I want to say there was an interview or something of the sort that basically said the name "Prey" was basically mandated to be used. Since Bethesda had to use it for something or risk losing the copyright/trademark or whatever they have for it.
I think the name itself would carry weight if it was as sequel to the original. Maybe not now since it's been so long. But for the original timeframe the game was supposed to release, I think it would've been fine (It's not like that game was coming out the date arkanes prey did had it come out).
I agree about the name thing though. I think it would've been in a better place with a different name. All the name did was make people mad who still thought of the original and confuse those who still remembered the game.
Oh yeah, I think I remember reading something about trade marks etc. There's a chance Prey 2 would have performed better, but I think it's far from a guarantee. As good as the game looked, we also can't be sure it would have been a great game.
The name debacle really muddied the waters, and I feel bad for Arkane for crafting a really good game and continuing to be dogged with choice comments like:
That's what they get for cancelling Prey 2 for this dud.
I mean that's just a shitty way to look at the situation. From all accounts Arkane had nothing to do with the naming of this game. It's just a name, god damn. Judge the game on it's own merits and pretend it's called something else.
Don't punish the developers because the publisher has done some dodgy stuff in the past.
Bizarre comparison. Does anyone care about that "sub-genre"? The appeal of Stranger's Wrath was that it was a great shooter in the Oddworld universe, not that it was a bounty hunter style game. Prey 2 wasn't a "bounty hunter style game" either, it was an open world sci fi shooter with platforming elements.
Personally, I think Prey 2 would've been a MUCH easier sell than Prey 2017 and that would've led to far more success. The CG trailer alone told you everything you needed to know about Prey 2 and it looked amazing. Whereas Prey 2017's CG trailer started out insanely slow and didn't really tell you a whole lot about the game.
Prey 2 was pretty eye catching, I'll give you that. This game doesn't really seem as immediate. But it's easy to fall into the trap of thinking that something SHOULD perform well but reality often doesn't match up. A bunch of people talk about how they would buy this or that cancelled game, but that doesn't always translate to sales.
The Prey 2 concept was outstanding (I was crushed when that and STALKER 2 were cancelled within a few months of each other) but if you pitched the concept of "an emergent sim with a AAA budget designed as a System Shock successor, without dumbing down the gameplay systems" plenty of people would be frothing at the mouth.
It seems like this game delivered on that premise quite well, but nobody seems to care. If the game was never revealed and there was an article about how "Arkane was working on a cancelled System Shock successor" I'm sure the thread would be full of people talking about how great that would be...
