Report: Human Head bleeding talent

Human Head Studios has lost a large amount of its senior staff over the past year, as the fate of its projects like Prey 2 and Rune seem uncertain.

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Human Head Studios appears to be going through a fairly dramatic personnel shift, as reports indicate that the company has lost a significant amount of vital staff this year. The staff has either laid off or lost 13 members, which in a studio that boasted 50-70 at its peak is a pretty wide swath.

Kotaku reports that the studio has lost its COO, development director, HR manager, lead programmer, lead graphics programmer, an associate producer, an audio director, and various other programming positions.

This comes just months after news hit that Prey 2 had been delayed amid a contract dispute with Bethesda. The publisher still claims Prey 2 is coming out, but Human Head reportedly stopped working on it last year. Meanwhile, Human Head has started hinting at a Rune revival. But as the studio loses so much of its staff, it's hard to say where current projects might be in development now.

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  • reply
    October 4, 2012 3:00 PM

    Steve Watts posted a new article, Report: Human Head bleeding talent.

    Human Head Studios has lost a large amount of its senior staff over the past year, as the fate of its projects like Prey 2 and Rune seem uncertain.

    • reply
      October 4, 2012 3:26 PM

      It's over Prey 2 is finished.

    • reply
      October 4, 2012 3:29 PM

      It's the Prey curse. That name is bad mojo.

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      October 4, 2012 3:48 PM

      Damnit, Bethesda. They just funded a new online MMO studio in Austin, right next to Mythic: http://www.shacknews.com/article/76050/bethesda-opens-battlecry-studios-in-austin

      ... and they're leaving Human Head to rot. The dead horse kick would be if Prey 2 is shipped off to Rebellion or Arkane.

      • reply
        October 4, 2012 4:14 PM

        If this article is true, then it doesn't sound like Human Head is in any condition to finish Prey 2.

        Machinegames (ex-Starbreeze) or Arkane are probably the internal studios best suited to what they showed a couple of years ago, but I wonder if they wouldn't rather shop it around to a few third party devs first.

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          October 4, 2012 4:44 PM

          That's why I said Rebellion; they're a gun-for-hire independent developer that got Rogue Warrior handed to them after Bethesda wasn't satisfied with the results from Zombie Studios. Their most recent non-iOS game was Sniper Elite V2.

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            October 5, 2012 6:07 AM

            "From the studio that finished Rogue Warrior" Yeah, that really inspires confidence.

            To be fair, we don't know what was handed to them, but I doubt they'd put that one on the Prey 2 box.

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        October 5, 2012 6:15 AM

        Beyond the history of one guy, we don't know its a MMO Battle Cry is working on.

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      October 4, 2012 4:15 PM

      Muuuuurgh. :(

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      October 4, 2012 6:46 PM

      Man, I still remember being completely blown away by the Prey demo from E3. There were some brilliant ideas in that game and I did enjoy it a lot but, much of it fell far short of expectations. Particularly the storyline. The end boss was a lazy tack-on culled from old 90's era shooters.

      The prey universe has great potential. I hope it doesn't die.

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        October 5, 2012 6:10 AM

        If Bethesda were smart, they'd stop wasting resources on that stupid MMO that nobody wants and make sure this game lives up to its potential.

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