Corporate communications are inherently soulless and boring. You actually have to take classes to ensure that what you write is boring and soulless enough that you won’t get sued and people won’t assume the worst about your product.
So it’s always refreshing when somebody is so angry near the top of the food chain that it filters down into the press releases. Take what Bethesda had to say about “Prey 2”, a game we’d pretty much given up as canceled around here:
Development of Prey 2 has not been cancelled but the game will not be released in 2012 as planned. The delay is due to the fact that game development has not progressed satisfactorily this past year, and the game does not currently meet our quality standards. Prey 2 has shown great promise and we regret disappointing our fans. We have made a substantial investment in game development to deliver the experience fans want. We are determined only to release the AAA game that fans rightfully expect, and are unwilling to compromise our quality standards to meet a release schedule.
Keep in mind: this game has been in development for seven freaking years. Granted, this is in line with the history of “Prey”; the first one was started in 1995 and didn’t come out until 2006. But still. Ouch. Someone at Zenimax is furious, and for good reason: there’s now a big sucking hole in their release schedule where “Prey 2” should be. Maybe they should put out a 3D Realms Classic Collection or something.
“Prey 2” is probably going to come out, but we wouldn’t count on Human Head, the developer, being around for very long.