Development of Prey 2 was scrapped just a few months after its initial reveal in 2011, Human Head Studios has said.
The company revealed it had been working on the sequel for around two years up to that point.
"We stopped working on Prey 2 near the end of 2011, and had been working on it for close to two years," said Chris Rhinehart, during a chat with Develop.
"We were at that point in a game where you can step back and see the whole picture and shift from developer to editor and decide which elements to cut and which elements to emphasis and polish."
Despite drumming up a lot of hype following its E3 showcase in 2011, Bethesda ultimately decided to can the project, suggesting it wasn’t up to scratch.
However, Norm Nazaroff of Human Head believes the title “would have been counted among the best looking games of the previous console generation” if it were to have seen a release.
"We had a great deal of content created, some of which was shown publicly but a lot of which was not," he continued.
"Our tech had progressed significantly past the live demo we ran at E3, Gamescom and PAX and was even more impressive. It’s my personal opinion that we would have been counted among the best looking games of the previous console generation."
Rumors have suggested that Prey 2 has since been handed over to Arkane Studios, although Bethesda has denied this.