You'll probably know Polycount from their occasional Valve-partnered contests. Some of the site's users have made items now found in Dota 2 and Team Fortress 2. Those items have gone on to secure their creators big money hats, to be worn in a big money houses, built atop big money islands. (They made a lot of money, is what I'm saying.) The site also runs less lucrative, but equally creative contests - like this one in partnership with Sketchfab. The brief was to create low-poly gaming dioramas in the tool, and the results is a series of excellent, interactive tributes full of charm and detail.

You'll find a few (PC relevant) relevant examples below. Be sure to full-screen them for maximum impact, and remember: this is only a tiny portion of the full, frequently amazing thread.

Canabalt by adam



Dishonored by AzzaMat



Enemy Territory: Quake Wars by Shiv



The Secret of Monkey Island by hopgood



X-COM: UFO Defense by Saiblade



Mirror's Edge by robert.nally



I'll stop there before I accidentally embed the entire thread. Do go and browse it.

Voting for the contest's winner is due to take place next week. Good luck to everyone who entered.

Members of the Hatter gang hate Daud almost as much as they love hats.

Atonement can take quite a while, depending on the crime. After assassinating the empress at the beginning of Dishonored, master assassin Daud set out to redeem himself in Dishonored’s second DLC, The Knife of Dunwall. Now, Bethesda completes Daud’s story and puts him up against a new and dangerous enemy: the Brigmore Witches.

After a fitful dream featuring a cameo by a certain famous assassin, Daud wakes to find that he’s got a new mission. A coven of witches led by the mysterious Delilah Copperspoon is getting up to something at the expansive Brigmore Manor house somewhere upriver. “I cannot abide a mystery,” Daud intones, and charters a boat.

Or, he would, if he could ever do things like chartering a boat as easily as stepping down to the local travel agent. The best boat to take him past a blockade is run by a vicious gang whose boss, the scarred, tattooed, and abrasive Lizzy Stride, was recently busted and thrown into Coldridge Prison to rot. The bulk of Brigmore Witches is taken up by Daud working to free Lizzy and win the Dead Eels over to his cause.

Daud gathers his gear and heads out. The Favors system from Knife of Dunwall is still in place, allowing you to pay your network of assassins to bribe servants, sabotage doors and leave you caches of supplies nearby to help you through most missions. Most of the favors are outright bargains, and Daud has money to spend. Unlike Corvo, who lost everything at the beginning of his story, Daud is still sitting fat on a pile of dead-Empress cash. Daud can easily afford all of the favors and many of the upgrades available.

For the first mission, I spend 100 coins to purchase an old Overseer uniform. After skulking in the shadows for all of Dishonored and Knife of Dunwall, it feels bizarre and brazen to just stroll through the prison gates in a freshly pressed uniform, reeking of religious authority. Instead of skulking, I’m face-to-face with Coldridge’s guards as they complain about their duties. As I wander deeper into the prison to go about my fake Overseer business, I look for an interior door or unwatched hall to slip away and start to break Lizzy out of jail.

Of course, my false uniform is only good for as long as I act like an Overseer. As soon as I get spotted in a restricted area or found carrying an unconscious convict out the front doors, though, the ruse is up and it’s time to run.

Just like in the original Dishonored, the real pleasure of Brigmore Witches is found in moving through a mission without raising any eyebrows. It’s easy for part of the first mission, thanks to the Overseer uniform, but eventually Daud has to go back to being a ghost. But when things go wrong—and they will—Daud has a brand-new power to lean on. Pull unlocks Daud’s inner Jedi and allows him to levitate small items like keys, coins, and bullets, pocketing them from a distance. At higher levels, Pull can lift enemies off the ground and hold them until you disable or kill them. Daud’s trusty wristbow and summonable assassin helpers are also back for you to use if things really start to go pear-shaped.

Lizzy Stride. You may have rescued her from prison, but if you call her a "damsel" she will cut you.

When you do get in a scrap, new enemies mix up the sometimes-predictable rhythm of cutlass-and-pistol wielding city watch officers. The Dead Eels gang uses boat hooks instead of swords, giving them wild, long-range swings that you’ll need to get past to land any cuts. They also throw gaseous grenades of green river gunk that is less than pleasant.

The witches themselves are snarling balls of nastiness, and they fight like it. Members of the Brigmore coven throw frenetic combinations of spells and screams at you, making them especially dangerous. After a particularly bloody encounter trying to sneak past a trio of witches, I begin greeting members of the coven with a wristbow bolt to the head on sight: going toe-to-toe is just too risky. Some witches are accompanied by Grave Hounds, undead dogs that have a tendency to get back up after you’ve killed them once or twice.

All of the levels I play feel slightly smaller than vanilla Dishonored, but still feature a load of detailed world-building. As The Knife of Dunwall explored the whaling operations propping up the economy of Dunwall, Brigmore Witches spends a lot of time with the dockside neighborhoods and their warring gangs, and the steampunky flavor of the setting really starts to come out in the cobblestone streets and advertisements for Pratchett’s Jellied Eels.

Daud uses Pull on a Brigmore witch. She... seems irritated.

 

Though the levels have been designed with care, none of the puzzles I found were as difficult as the hardest missions in Dishonored. Those seeking incredibly difficult assassination missions may be disappointed. With Michael Madsen continuing as the voice of Daud and the story moving fast toward an inevitable confrontation with Delilah and the Brigmore coven, though, I think that the story itself promises to be the most satisfying part of this DLC.

Brigmore Manor is a beautiful setting for the DLC’s conclusion, and it’s a location I’m looking forward to exploring in full: just as I stepped onto the lush-but-unkempt lawn, I got a tap on the shoulder telling me I was cut off.

I’ll just have to wait until The Brigmore Witches is released next week to take a proper look around.

Perry recently told us about a mod called Gifts of the Outsider that imports the magic powers from Dishonored into Skyrim: Blink, Possession, Bend Time, Devouring Swarm, Wind Blast, and Void Gaze. I decided to the use the mod not just for its powers, but also to reenact the plot of Dishonored in Skyrim: the tale of an honorable man seeking revenge after being framed for a crime he didn’t commit. It’ll be just like Dishonored, only in Skyrim, and starring a furry woman with a tail. Just call me Khorvo.

Don’t worry, this will be supremely light on Dishonored spoilers, I'll cover a few of the activities you perform during the Dishonored campaign, Skyrim style. Let’s get started. What’s the first thing you do in Dishonored?

Play Hide-and-Seek with a Child

This is how REAL assassins train. Next: hopscotch.

I find some kids running around in Solitude, but they don’t want to play hide-and-seek, so we play tag instead. Minette Vinius and I chase each other around, forming a close personal bond that will surely keep me motivated in the dark days to come. I catch her and tag her and then I fast-travel to Whiterun so she’ll never be able to catch me and she'll be “It” forever.

Go To Prison for a Crime I Didn’t Commit

In Whiterun, I use a Frenzy spell on some guy standing around in the city. He goes nuts and starts attacking anyone nearby. The guards run over and arrest me while he is killed in the background. I’m shocked and outraged. I didn’t kill anyone! It was all him! You won’t get away with this! I will have my revenge! Looks like I’ve been... DISHONORED!

Can you believe the crime around here, officer? Wait, what did I do?

Escape from Prison

Not a problem! Pulling a lockpick out of my butt, I open the cell door, sneak through the prison, collect my gear, and slip back out into the streets. You’ll all pay for what you’ve done, I silently vow. All of you. It’s time to reclaim my honor. But how?

Meet the Outsider

Since I’m a wanted woman in Whiterun, I need to get away to plot my revenge. I head out to an abandoned house west of Riften, where I find a book and read it. I appear in Limbo, where everything is floaty and slanty, and meet The Outsider. He gives me the Blink power, which lets me teleport short distances. He tells me there are other powers I can collect by visiting his other shrines. Could these powers be the key to destroying those who wronged me?

I promise I'll only use Blink for good or for revenge or for fun.

Assassinate an Important Religious Figure

There are plenty of religious types in Skyrim, but when I think about one I’d like to assassinate, a particular zealot immediately comes to mind: Heimskr, the Nord Priest of Talos. Even if you don’t know his name, you know him: he’s the dude who stands in the middle of Whiterun and screeches incessantly about Talos, all day, every day. Oh, and is it a coincidence that the spot he stands in is just yards from where I was arrested for my “crime?” Not a chance. His death will mark the beginning of my quest to dis-dishonor myself.

This looks cool but I'm actually sliding off the statue for the 8th time.

I creep through Whiterun, using my new Blink spell. It’s neat, it really does zip you around, even on top of buildings, though I tend to slowly slide off. I blink onto the statue behind Heimskr, then to the ground behind him, and then I stab him in the back. I blink away onto a rooftop and the guards look around, confused, having no idea where I went. Actually, they don’t seem confused at all. They immediately shoot me with a bunch of arrows. I run away, but only because I'm in a hurry to reclaim my honor.

Now to just fold up my sword and OWW IT’S NOT A FOLD-UP SWORD

Now that Heimskr is dead, it’s time to find another Outsider shrine, collect a new power, and choose a new target. In the sewers under Riften, I find the shrine, caress the skull, and acquire the Devouring Swarm rune.

Assassinate Two People in a Brothel

Haelga’s Bunkhouse in Riften isn’t a brothel, but it sort of sounds like it could be. You know there are at least a few inappropriate back-rubs going on in there. I summon up a swarm of rats, and try to kill two people with them.

The perfect crime. Good luck trying to arrest swarm of rats, coppers!

Okay, the rats sort of killed everyone in the entire building. Those rats are NOT messing around. Having killed a room full of people with rats, a feeling seeps into my heart. I haven’t felt it in a long time, not since earlier today, but I know what that feeling is. It’s honor, slowly returning to me. I collect the Possession rune near the Dark Brotherhood Sanctuary, and I’m on to my next mission.

Abduct a Doctor on a Bridge

The first step goes well: I head to Dragon Bridge. I run into a bit of a snag here, though, as there do not appear to be any doctors out for a stroll across Dragon Bridge today. For a lesser assassin, that would be a problem, but I’m clever enough to find the owner of a lumber mill sitting nearby. A lumberjack is sort of like a doctor for trees, if doctors killed all of their patients and cut them into pieces, right? (The answer is: right.) He’s not on the bridge, but that can remedied with my new Possession spell. I leap into his mind and run him onto the bridge, where I pop out of the back of his head.

Revenge is a dish best served inside an innocent lumberjack’s head.

Having gotten him onto to the bridge, it’s time to abduct him off the bridge, which means possessing him again. I steer him off the other side of the bridge and into the wilderness. Abduction accomplished! I figure I’ll just keep possessing him and repossessing him and making him run so far away he’ll never find his way back, thus completing the abduction, but thirty seconds later we run into a bear and the bear kills him.

Looks like I got out of this dude’s head just in time.

I’ve just used magic to get a lumber mill owner murdered by a bear. I’m one step closer to regaining my honor. I visit another shrine and collect the Wind Blast rune.

Kill a Fancy Woman at a Fancy Party

There actually is a dinner party quest in Skyrim, but I’ve already completed it, so I need to find another fancy lady at a fancy place and kill her, fancy style. For honor. I know! The Blue Palace at Solitude. It’s the fanciest place I can think of.

Making sure to avoid Minette Vinius (I don’t want to get tagged “It” again!) I run through Solitude and enter The Blue Palace, which is run by Elisif The Fair, a fancy woman. I creep into the throne room, where there are some people hanging around. Looks like a party to me. Sorry I didn’t bring any WINE, I growl from the shadows, but I did bring some WIND!

Get it? Wine. Wind. Almost the same word. And so forth.

They don’t seem to get my wine/wind joke, probably because they are being slammed all over the room by magic wind. It’s a great spell: it’s like the Unrelenting Force shout, only you can hold down the button to keep it on, sending everyone flying all over the place until your Magicka is drained. After blowing everyone around the palace for a while, I head to the nearby mountains to collect the Bend Time rune. It’s time to kill the most important person in Skyrim.

It’s Time to Kill The Most Important Person In Skyrim

I figure the Jarl of Whiterun is the most important person in Skyrim, except for maybe me. I sneak into his chambers in the dead of night, slipping past a couple guards after slowing down time. It doesn’t quite work how I want: I was perfectly hidden from them until I cast the spell, which made them aware of me. The spell slows down time just fine, though, and even having seen me, the guards don’t seem to care that I’m creeping around near the Jarl’s bedroom casting time-bending spells in the dead of night.

You can’t really tell, but he is dying in slow motion. I can vouch for that.

The Jarl has an honorable, slow-motion death as I hack at his sleeping body. The guards run over to arrest me, and I try telling them that I’d rather die than go to prison, anticipating a fun Blink-filled escape from Whiterun. Unfortunately, Skyrim does that thing where it doesn’t select the line of dialogue I’m pointing at, so I accidentally bribe the guards and they peacefully escort me to the front door. Oh well.

Skip A Big Part of Dishonored’s Story To Avoid Spoilers

My easiest mission yet! I collect the final rune, Void Gaze, so I guess we’re ready for the big finale:

Kill Someone At a Lighthouse

Back in Solitude, I run around the lighthouse long enough discover there’s no one important in the lighthouse or on top of the lighthouse. There’s only Ma’zaka, the lighthouse keeper, but he’s downstairs in his little chambers. I sneak in, and use Void Gaze, which works like Detect Life, letting you see people through walls. I could possess him, run him up to the top of the lighthouse, and Wind Blast him off, but when you’re possessing someone they can’t open doors, so I have no way to get him out of his room. If I want to kill him, I’ll have to kill him right here.

Yep. There he is.

This isn’t quite the grand ending from Dishonored, though. I know that killing people with rats and blasting a fancy woman into her own ceiling and getting a lumberjack bear-mauled were all necessary -- absolutely necessary -- to regain my honor. But killing Ma’zaka, a humble, harmless lighthouse keeper in his own bedroom to end the story... it would just be complete anti-climax, wouldn’t it?

Yep. It was a complete anti-climax.

Lesson learned: if you want Dishonored’s story, go play Dishonored. If you want to have fun with Dishonored’s powers in Skyrim, though, this mod works great.

Installation: I installed this with the Nexus Mod Manager, but the mod looks as if it's just a single bsa and esp file. So, if you're doing it manually, just download the files and plop 'em in your Skyrim data folder (Steam > steamapps > common > skyrim > Data). No magic required.

Looking for more Skyrim mods? We recently updated out grand list of the best 50 for your perusal.

I’ve never been much of a magic user in the Elder Scrolls series. Reading spellbooks, memorizing incantations, and finding robes with just the right thread count simply takes too much time for the busy rogue that I am. Luckily for me, someone has implanted Dishonored’s mysterious ability-giving being known as “The Outsider” into the world of Tamriel.

The Gifts of the Outsider mod grants you six of the powers you were given as Dishonored's titular assassin, Corvo, which include the ability to slow time, teleport across environments, and summon an army of rats to aid you in glorious battle. The teleport ability (known as Blink) was my primary means of transportation in Dishonored, so to see it in Skyrim’s expansive world is nothing short of a dream come true.

You can find the mod on the Skyrim Nexus website, which also explains how to endow yourself with powers through console commands, skipping the custom quest where you'd normally receive them. Those who also wish to don Corvo’s assassin attire can download the files here.

Between this and the amazing Falskaar mod (though you could practically call that one an expansion), it’s difficult to come up with something you can’t change, fix, or improve in the world of Skyrim. You want bunny mounts? Superhero costumes? Whatever the hell this thing is? The world is your modifiable oyster.

After yesterday's brief teaser, Bethesda have today fully unveiled the third Dishonored DLC pack. *Crosses fingers* Please let us play a whale, please let us play a whale, please let us... oh, it's just Daud again. The Brigmore Witches will continue the story started by The Knife of Dunwall, and see the assassin attempt to stop a ritual that threatens to end his aerial knife-plunging ways.

New areas are promised, including gangland streets of Draper's Ward; Brigmore Manor, home of the titular witches and their scary rotting dog pets; and a return to Coldridge Prison - the place where a certain royal bodyguard spent an extended holiday.

Daud's existing weapons, powers and upgrades will carry over from The Knife of Dunwall playthroughs, and a new ability will be introduced in the form of Pull, letting him supernaturally grab and suspend enemies, to be used as a human shield.

The Brigmore Witches is out August 13th, and will cost $9.99 or "equivalent price points".

Dishonored's last DLC, the Knife of Dunwall, followed the story of Daud, the assassin who went all stabbity-stab-stab in the wake of ruthlessly slaughtering the Empress. Look, everyone mourns in their own way, right? In this case, it looks like the fella will be receiving some sort of closure soon—Bethesda today unveiled two new pieces artwork for the next DLC, The Brigmore Witches, ahead of the release of more information tomorrow.

The first murk-tinged concept art was tweeted by the Dishonored Twitter account with the caption "Daud's journey concludes, more details tomorrow." I'm not sure, but it looks as though that lady is standing in the remains of what was once a sweet gaming den. Art #2, tweeted by Bethblog, looks even creepier, with the assassin staring intently at a boarded-up house his vantage point in a graveyard. Speculate away; your PC Gamer news team will be standing by for the release of information tomorrow.

Life for many residents of Dishonored's Dunwall city is brutal, short, and dark. Fortunately, the possibility of a sequel to Arkane Studios' take on steampunk stealth appears to be anything but grim, according to recent comments made by Bethesda marketing VP Pete Hines to IGN.

When asked if he saw a future for a Dishonored series, Hines had the following to say: “In general, we try not to wade into anything as a one-off in the first place,” Hines said, “so yeah, for sure. The success of that game and how proud Arkane is of it and what goes on at any studio when they put out something like that and all the ideas that are coming out, certainly it’s something that we feel is a franchise.”

As we saw in its recent DLC The Knife of Dunwall, there is no shortage of strange and interesting characters in Dishonored who would be ready to pick up a blade and continue Arkane's story. Hines also used the game's trajectory as a way to talk about how publisher Bethesda views the development process within the various studios it works with. The possible creation of a Dishonored series is "specific to Arkane," he said.

“What we do or don’t do on Dishonored has zero effect on id, Tango, Machine Games," Hines said. "Each one, in some respects, kind of acts in a silo. It doesn’t really matter what those guys are making. ‘What are you good at? What are you going to work on next? What are you going to do next? Okay, that’s what we’re going to do.’ It’s as simple as that.”

A sequel to id Software's Rage, for example, is "to be determined," as that development team is currently at work on different, unnamed game, according to Hines. "Right now, focus is on their current project," Hines said. "They are full bore on that. What I’ve seen of it recently, I’m super happy about it. We want them to stick to that until we’re ready to talk about what that is. But let’s wait until we get there first.”

Thanks, VG24/7

So, you've played Dishonored a few times. You had a mostly (or entirely) non-lethal run, followed by a decidedly more lethal run (to see the game's bummer ending), and maybe, for good measure, a combat run where you just got into deliberate, chaotic sword fights the whole time. Well, unfold your sword and clutch your weird mechanical heart, because it's time for another trip through Dunwall with the Ultimate Difficulty Mod. The mod presents you with some new challenges by shaving down your leaning ability to a sliver and by vastly improving your enemies' perceptions and combat prowess.

Let's begin with the Dunwall Lean, the stealth move invented by Corvo Attano. No matter what difficulty setting you're using, Corvo's lean always feels a bit like cheating. You're behind cover and you want to have a quick look around, so you essentially shove your head, shoulders, and upper torso out of cover to survey your surroundings. The game still considers you hidden, meaning you can have a long, safe gander without standing up. You can even poke both your arms out and use magic or a weapon, and if a guard is facing you, you can stare right into his stupid face without him ever noticing you.

DRAMATIZATION: NOT REAL FOOTAGE OF CORVO'S LEAN IN DISHONORED

With Ultimate Difficulty, Corvo's Mean Lean is now more of a Sneak Peek, limited to what feels like about a 10-degree angle, meaning you slyly peep around corners instead of using the upper half of your body like a submarine periscope.

You can barely tell, but this is the most leaningest lean there is in the mod.

It takes a bit of getting used to, and I found myself having to constantly shuffle closer and closer to the edge of cover to get a decent look, putting myself more at risk of being seen by patrols. It feels far more fair to the whiskey and cigar enthusiasts you're stalking, though, and makes stealth quite a bit more challenging. Once you've got your Dark Vision, it becomes less of an issue, but it still goes a long way toward making ghost runs tougher.

Guards hear you, and come running, from much further away.

Speaking of tougher, let's talk enemies. They're considerably more difficult to deal with than they are on the Very Hard setting. Improvements begin with their hearing, which is twice as keen as in the vanilla version. This means they will hear the noises you make from twice as far away. Fire your gun, slip off a ledge, throw something, or simply take a few un-crouched footsteps anywhere in their vicinity, and their little head-based lightning bolts will trigger.

Since they can hear you from twice the distance, they will also come running from twice the distance, meaning that a careless or clumsy Corvo will draw the attention of guards from blocks distant. A noise that used to bring three or four guards stomping in your direction may draw twice that many now. Almost every fight I got into wound up being a massive brawl, and when an alarm is sounded, it feels like the entire city watch pours in to your location. Of course, Corvo is no slouch at taking down a crowd of soldiers, but you'll quickly notice that the mod has made the soldiers a lot more formidable at fighting.

Enemies are tougher, but not in regard to hit points. They still die real good when you shoot 'em.

It's not that they've been inflated with extra hit points, or that they've learned any new tricks, they just perform their old tricks with a great deal more speed. They're quicker to block your attacks, and if you do stagger them, they're quicker to recover. There's less of a pause between sword swings and they fire their guns more often. They're now twice as quick to throw cobblestones and grenades if you're perching out of reach, and they're faster to do the little sidestep or backwards hop they sometimes do during sword fights. While fighting with my health low, I was kicked to death more than once, something that never happened to me while playing the vanilla version of the game.

On the other hand, they're still pretty easy to befuddle if you blink away, and they still haven't learned the value of looking up on a regular basis, so it's still not terribly hard to elude them if you get overwhelmed. However, they do take much longer to give up looking for you once they know you're around. Their new persistence and improved perception makes good stealth work more or less essential, and their improved fighting ability means you can't just race through the streets hack-and-slashing with relative ease anymore.

Mo' bodies, mo' problems. Wait, no. Less problems. Far less.

Another nice touch is that bodies no longer just vanish, which tends to happen in Dishonored if you've got more than a handful lying around. Up to fifty bodies will now remain in perpetuity unless a swarm of rats shows up, and if you're playing the type of game in which you're accumulating scores of dead bodies, you'd better believe swarms of rats will show up. I'm not sure what purpose this serves. Maybe the extra bodies lying around makes it more likely that your killing spree will be noticed, but if you're killing dozens of people you're probably not keeping a particularly low profile anyway. Still, it's cool because after an awesome fight you can get a real picture of how many people you've killed and how many wives will weep and how many children will grow up without their fathers. Good job!

Impressively, all of these changes are due to tweaks to a handful of .ini files, and the modder considerately lists them all in a text file included with the mod, if you're curious to what's being changed (or if you want to tweak some of them yourself). Version .02 of the mod is compatible with The Knife of Dunwall DLC as well.

Even Daud can enjoy a tougher experience. Yay?

The mod is still a work in progress, and the modder is still looking for ways to make things even tougher by raising prices in stores, making spells drain more mana, and other tweaks to give you a more challenging experience in Dunwall. If you're looking for an excuse to play through the game a fourth time, this is your ticket.

Because you can't have an article about Dishonored without a screenie of some fancy-pants getting neck-stabbed.

Installation: It's super easy, but you'll need to be as cautious as Corvo at an Overseer Convention when installing this mod, because you're going to be overwriting a few game files. First, find your Dishonored folder (probably in My Documents, My Games, Dishonored, Dishonored Game, Config). Make a copy of the entire Config folder, and store it somewhere safe -- you'll need it if you decide to remove the mod. Then download the mod file (this page gives you a couple options), extract the handful of new ini files into Config, overwriting the originals. Make sure the new files are set to read only, and you're done!

The word on the grapevine that Marvin Gaye was so fond of is that Arkane Austin (of Dishonored and alliteration fame) may be taking over the reins of the much-troubled Prey 2, rescuing Human Head's ambitious open world sci-fi thingy from a fate worse than death: permanent hiatus. Kotaku and premature Prey 2 fansite Alien Noire have been stuffing that grapevine with the juiciest of rumours, including the startling not-quite-news that the Dishonored devs will be scrapping all of Human Head's work and re-creating the entire game from scratch. (You know, if any of this is true.) Arkane Austin devs have apparently been told to "just treat it like a new System Shock," and-dammit, I just spat beer all over my keyboard.

I'd be quite disappointed if that ends up being true, because I was rather impressed with what little we got to see of Human Head's presumably now-Dodo-like take on the Prey sequel. Obviously, however, the existence of another System Shock-like game from the talented devs behind Dishonored just about makes up for it - so consider me conflicted on the subject.

Other noteworthy nuggets from the rumour mill include reports that Arkane didn't seem too interested in working on the game, at least at first. Here's a quote from the Kotaku story:

"Bethesda had been trying for a few months now to convince Arkane to work on the game. Last week, the tipster says, Bethesda finally forced their hand: Arkane would develop Prey 2, scrapping all the work that Human Head has done and starting from scratch.

"Some people at Arkane Austin are upset about this decision, but higher-ups at the company are telling the team to forget that it's called Prey 2 and just treat it like a new System Shock."

If this is all true, Prey 2 now has a planned release date of 2016, which is so far away I can't even imagine it. I just tried again and - nope. So far Bethesda, Arkane, Human Head and Tommy from Prey 1 are keeping schtum on the matter - we'll update as soon as we know more.

With games including Dishonored and Deus Ex under his belt, Arkane Studios' Harvey Smith knows a thing or four hundred about storytelling. In April he published his first novel, Big Jack is Dead, and if you download it before tomorrow, you can enjoy it for free (the link goes to the US store and will not work outside the US, but you can download the book from the Amazon store in your region).
The story revolves around Jack Hickman, an "antisocial software exec" who finds out during the middle of a corporate meeting that his father has killed himself. Although it's primarily a work of fiction, parts of Harvey Smith's Southern Gothic novel are pulled almost directly from Smith's own tumultuous personal history, including his own father's suicide and the overdose of Smith's mother on drugs.
Don't have a Kindle? No problem, just download the Kindle app for iOS and Android or use Amazon's Cloud Reader.