Prey – Sold 1.07 Million
The original Prey came out in 2006, after a long and troubled development that saw several false starts. The game released on PC and Xbox 360, and sold around 1 million copies. Prey received stellar reviews from critics and a sequel was greenlit. It’s rather fitting then that the sequel also had a hard time getting off the ground,which led to the rights being purchased by Bethesda Softworks and Zenimax Media in 2009. Bethesda restarted development on Prey 2 and revealed a trailer in 2011. That game was also scrapped and restarted, which ultimately led to the rebooted Prey, which released in 2017.
Prey was revealed by Bethesda to a great reception from fans and critics, and yet, when the game released in May 2017, it barely cracked the 1 million sold mark. We can make several guesses as to why this is: Bethesda’s review policy, lack of mainstream awareness, and some less than stellar reviews, including IGN’s original review which scored the game a 4.0 for a game-breaking bug – which was later amended when the game got patched – and even here at Twinfinite we found the game to be interesting but with flawed movement and an uninspired upgrading system. Prey didn’t sell well in its first week on the market, despite not having any AAA competition that week, and since then has found itself on sales charts every other week. The lack of sales came off the back of Arkane Studios previous release, Dishonored 2, also failing to meet projections, which led to Arkane Studios President and co-founder Raphael Colantonio leaving the studio.
With two lackluster titles in the series, it’s hard to imagine Bethesda wanting to dive back in for a third dose, which may even be the case with Dishonored too.
