Canceled 'Prey 2' had an ending unlike anything we've ever seen

The recent Prey reboot — if you can call it that, since the game has absolutely no ties to the original game — delivered its share of twists and turns, but the entire story felt too contained. Even a late-game twist seemed to be too neat and tidy, but this wasn’t the plan for Prey 2. In fact, the canceled sequel’s ending could have been one of the most memorable in game history.

In the latest episode of Eurogamer’s “Here’s A Thing,” Chris Bratt shared story details he gathered from several former members of Prey 2 developer Human Head Studios and the point to a game that would have offered a unique take on the “respawn” cycle of traditional video games.

After finding himself stranded on an alien planet called Exodus, protagonist Killian becomes a bounty hunter, transporting his targets to prison using a teleportation device. Though initially believing himself to be the only human on this planet, Killian would eventually come into contact with Tommy from the original Prey. Killian claimed to have never met him before, but it is soon revealed that the current version of Killian is only one of several hundred clones — the others have since died off and Killian’s consciousness had been swapped into the new one. Every time the player dies, the cycle restarts again.

When Killian is launched into space and forced to use his bounty hunting device to teleport himself, he is transported back to Earth where he lives out the rest of his days happily and eventually dies of old age … only he doesn’t. He once again wakes up on Exodus and the entire process starts over again.

It certainly sounds like an ending that would have left the Prey series open for several future installments, and it is a shame we’ll never see the project come to fruition. For more details on the canceled game, including equipment and unique mechanics, check out the full video above.