Welcome to the Prey Museum, the most complete archive of material regarding the development of Prey, documenting the history of an underrated 3D Realms production, developed from 1995 to 2006. Here you will find absolutely everything that was released on the Internet by 3DRealms, Human Head or individual developers, during the long process of getting the game done.
For your convenience, this site is split into sections.
- Screenshots: In-game scenes released by companies or individuals who worked on the game, ordered by year.
- Concept Art: Sketches or renders of individual characters, objects or locations, ordered by year. Also, promotional art.
- Videos: Trailers, promotional videos for the game.
- Audio: Early recordings for Talon Brave, Domasi Tawodi and Enisi, audio podcasts.
- Text Docs: Statements by developers posted in forums, .plan updates, press releases or interviews. Paul Schuytema's complete plot for the 1998 version of Prey. Weekly updates going all the way back to 1996. Cheat codes for Prey.
- Files: The demo of Prey, for Windows, Linux and OSX. The Linux port of Prey (executable only). Two versions of the Prey SDK. Various tutorial maps. Dedicated servers for Windows and Linux.
- Links: Archived versions of articles about Prey and its development during the years.
- 1995: Right after the release of Rise of the Triad, 3DRealms decides to make a "dark Sci-Fi game" and starts the concept for Prey. Tom Hall is the project leader; William Scarboro is the lead programmer. The team starts writing their first 3D engine.
- After 3 or 4 months, William Scarboro has a true 3D texture mapped and lit engine up and running.
- 3DRealms releases the first batch of Prey screenshots.
- 1996: In February, Don Allie, Doug Wood, and David Demaret join the Prey team. Tom Hall works on his own Prey Bible, where the character is simply named Prey of Earth.
- On March 8, network code is implemented into the first iteration of the Prey engine.
- On April 5, the team publishes a prank screenshot where the engine is touted to reach "258 frames per second on a 486". Work continues on the MS-DOS and Windows 95 versions of the editor.
- On May 10, support for 3D acceleration is implemented and the first "high resolution" (meaning 640x480) screenshot is released. The team still isn't happy with the engine, because the lighting "just isn't quite right".
- More Prey screenshots are released in the Duke Nukem 3D CD.
- About mid year, the Prey team decides to support hardware acceleration only. William Scarboro rewrites the engine again, specifically for hardware (3Dfx first). At the same time he rewrites "Preditor", the in-house editor
for Prey.
- On July 19, a moratorium on new screenshots is put in place, as the engine is being rewritten.
- In August, a few members of the Prey team leave the company.
Attempts to develop the game: 1
- On October 21, 3DRealms reveals the arrival of Paul Schuytema as the new project leader for Prey. Paul Schuytema throws out all the old Prey stuff and starts rewriting the Prey story.
- The new engine is made to run under 3Dfx with 16 bit art and colored lighting, while the game gets converted to
Windows 95/98.
- In November, two possible names for the main character are proposed: Ravin Brave and Justice Black Claw.
- 1997: On January 9, 3DRealms files a trademark application for the name Talon Brave.
- On April 1, a joke update, purportedly by Paul Schuytema, is published. According to it, the development team had been "stalling", all screenshots had been "faked with 3D Studio by Scott McCabe and Allen Dilling", and the Prey engine "could only show polygons, and was struggling at that too".
- In late April, the first public Prey demo is unveiled at CGDC (the Computer Game Developer's Conference) in San Jose. It runs so smoothly, people think it was a pre-rendered AVI.
- On April 24, 3DRealms hires Matt Wood as the first full-time mapper, and he starts creating intense environments. He and William begin communicating on ways to improve Preditor even further. 3DRealms releases Matt Wood's deathmatch-only Quake map which led them to hire him.
- On May 30, Loyal Bassett joins 3DRealms from Microsoft as a programmer for the Prey character system.
- By early summer, Preditor has evolved into the most advanced 3D level editor of the time. The editor uses the
engine directly, so a mapper gets to see the results of his work instantly. It also gives the mapper direct control over every single polygon in the map.
- In late June, Prey shows up at E3, with a non-interactive demo which only repeated once every 15 minutes, on a single computer on the floor. There was also a back room office where 3DRealms showed the demo interactively, plus some other engine "tricks." This gains Paul Schuytema's version of Prey a "best of show" award from Computer and Net Player magazine. 3DRealms releases two videos and several screenshots, and Paul Schuytema demonstrates Prey to Infinite MHz.
- On August 9, John Anderson joins 3DRealms from Lockheed-Martin to work with Preditor. He and Matt Wood work with the texture artists to create the "archetypal" looks, both texturally and architecturally, for the game's 4 primary alien environments. 3DRealms releases the Quake map he sent them to get hired.
- In September, 3DRealms has the first LAN-based multiplayer Prey experience.
- Loyal Bassett creates a "Prey actor" texturing and animating tool named Creditor (later renamed Skinner).
- In October, a a 90-day tech burst is started, to nail down all the principal game systems before Christmas. During the first month, the Prey OS comes on line as a full featured operating system, that allows developers to run and program the game simultaneously.
- In late October, 3DRealms decides the levels and flow of Chapter 1 of the game. They also finalize design on several actors and weapons.
- On November 17, a press release announces that industrial rock band KMFDM was signed to provide the music for Prey.
- On December 12, Paul Schuytema announces that the team has nailed down their vision for the first episode of the game, and the entire saga of Prey has been sculpted in rough form.
- On December 18, David March is hired as a modeler/animator, and 3DRealms releases two KMFDM songs with their permission: "Megalomaniac" and "Inane".
- More screenshots are released in the 3DRealms website.
- Joe Siegler posts a final 1997 news update that says: We expect 1998 (our 11th year in the gaming business) to be our best yet, with all kinds of stuff happening with Duke Nukem Forever, Prey, Max Payne, and Descent: Freespace.
- 1998: In January, a new batch of screenshots is released in the 3DRealms website.
- On February 6, 3DRealms releases a Quake map by Martin Goedtke which got 3DRealms to hire him.
- On April 20, 3DRealms receives a CD and a DAT from KMFDM containing some of their ideas for the Prey theme.
- On May 1, 3DRealms receives another CD with 4 more theme tracks from KMFDM.
- On May 15, 3DRealms releases the first 360 degrees screenshot, named preyhouse.ivr (now lost, except for its thumbnail).
- On May 28, 3DRealms announces they found Talon Brave's voice actor. They never reveal his name, but they say "he has an Apache background and has done different things in TV and radio before".
- David March (artist) and Martin Goedtke (mapper from Germany) join the Prey team.
- In June, 3DRealms shows a new Prey video containing music made by Sascha Konietzko of KMFDM (Lee Jackson instead made the opening background sounds and the sound effect of the beam that destroys the Earth), and a new interactive demo at E3. Paul Schuytema demonstrates Prey for Infinite MHz again. More screenshots are released. OGR rewards them with the "Most Promising First Person Shooter" and "Most Promising Software Technology" awards.
- On June 5, PC Gaming.com reviews what 3DRealms showed of Prey calling it an "industry killer". George Broussard says: PreyTech, what Paul called the engine, will be utilized in a series of games, including Duke 5.
- After seeing Prey's "portal technology" at E3, Epic Games adds Warpzones (static portals that appear to fold space) to the Unreal Engine.
- On June 11, Paul Schuytema finishes his draft for the whole Prey storyline, separated into seven chapters, each of which comprises more levels.
- Between July 22 and 24, Joe Siegler creates the "PreyWeb": an Intranet for the Prey development team that handles all documents. The PreyWeb files can now be accessed here.
- Between E3 and July 27, the Prey development team moves the Prey engine from Glide to Direct3D 6, and implements Power Micro Research's Toltec Audio Engine to have interactive music. Meanwhile, the artists finish their concept art for chapters 2 and 3 and start working on chapter 5.
- On July 28, Sascha Konietzko of KMFDM reveals that there would be some vocals in their music for Prey.
- On July 31, 3DRealms releases the second 360 degrees screenshot, named 360shot2.ivr (now lost, except for its thumbnail).
- On August 19 and 20, Paul Schuytema gives a Prey demo to Creative Labs and one to Joe Kriener of Cyrix. They comment that "nothing even comes close" to Prey.
- On August 27, Paul Schuytema goes to LBE for talks about an arcade version of Prey: a separate "arcade episode" set in the same universe.
- On August 28, Paul Schuytema recommends the Prey team to play John Anderson's "Prey_Quake demo", to recreate one of its moments in Prey. He also gives a Prey demo to Sega and answers questions about Sega using the Prey engine in a future title. Later he is told that the director of Sega's multiplayer gaming division wanted to scope out Prey as a possible early-release Dreamcast title, with the possibility of including some Preditor variant on the console CD.
- On September 2, Paul Schuytema receives an email from Brian Rodway about using the Prey engine for a third-person game named Headhunter.
- During the following Fall, it becomes apparent that the complexity of "portal technology" is holding the development team back from actually developing a game. William Scarboro becomes convinced that portals should be implemented as tricks, not as an engine paradigm. Paul Schuytema's iteration of Prey is scrapped. He and William Scarboro leave 3DRealms; the rest of the Prey team is reassigned to work on the second incarnation (the first based on the Unreal engine) of Duke Nukem Forever.
Attempts to develop the game: 2
- On November 19, 3DRealms hires Corrinne Yu to develop a new graphical engine for Prey, by herself. George Broussard says again: Prey and Duke Nukem 5 (tentative title) will be the first games to use this technology.
- In December, Joe Siegler posts a final 1998 news update that says: We expect 1999 (our 12th year in the gaming business) to be our best yet, with two new Duke Nukem games coming out, as well as Max Payne (with Prey on the horizon, too).
- 1999: On April 13, Joe Siegler makes a news update stating that 3DRealms would not be present at E3 that year, and neither Duke Nukem Forever nor Prey would be shown. This starts rumors that GT Interactive has dropped Prey and that the project is dead.
- On April 29, George Broussard denies those rumors, stating that Prey is a long way off but not dead, that all work on Prey is being done on the engine, and if anyone was anticipating Prey any time soon, they should not be.
- 2000: In March, Prey is put "on hold". Corrinne Yu leaves 3DRealms (fired?) and all Prey content is removed from both the 3DRealms site and FTP server.
Attempts to develop the game: 3
- On July 10, the movie Heavy Metal 2000 comes out. It contains KMFDM's song Missing Time, originally meant for the Prey soundtrack.
- On August 2, Joe Siegler replies to a claim that Prey was cancelled, stating that instead it was officially on hold until Duke Nukem Forever (was) out and finished (meaning any subsequent patches, upgrades, etc).
- 2001: In May, 3DRealms, Take2 and Human Head sign a publishing agreement stipulating that Human Head would develop the game and Take2 would fund the development.
George Broussard revises the Prey documents originally written by Paul Schuytema through 1997-98. Retitling the game as "Dark Harvest: a Tommy Hawk Adventure" and replacing all occurrences of the name "Talon Brave" with "Tommy Hawk", he hands them off to Human Head Studios on October 16.
- 2002: On March 11, Evil Avatar reveals that Human Head is working on Prey, now based on the Doom 3 engine.
- On June 26, Human Head announces that they are looking for "talented level designers experienced with QERadiant and the Quake 3 engine" (the Doom 3 level editor is very similar to QERadiant).
- On August 9, William Scarboro dies of an asthma attack. +RIP+
- On October 4, the job opening in the Human Head site is updated as looking for "a level design head to add to our collection for a project using the Doom 3 engine". Joe Siegler denies and pooh-poohs the truth on the forum, calling it old (incorrect) news that was debunked when it was first posted.
- 2003: On March 4, 3DRealms files a trademark application for the name Tommy Hawk.
- On June 13, Gamestar reports that an NVIDIA internal paper says Prey will be released as Dark Harvest by developer Human Head Studios.
- On June 16, Joe Siegler denies the truth again, repeating that Prey is "on hold".
- On November 23, Scott Miller post a blog entry, according to which: "3D Realms is currently working with another developer, to create another hit series, and in 2004 this game will be announced".
- 2004: On February 29, Joe Siegler responds to a post linking to that blog entry, denying yet again that the game in question is Prey. No new game is announced throughout 2004.
- 2005: On April 26, 3DRealms issues an official press release admitting the truth: Human Head is developing Prey.
- On May 18, 3DRealms reveals Human Head's iteration of Prey at E3.
- On June 3, 3DRealms releases the Prey trailer that was shown at E3.
- On June 6, 3DRealms is awarded "Best Comeback" from Games Revolutions and "Best Shooter" from Games Domain.
- On August 5, three new screenshots and an interview with Chris Rhinehart are released.
- On August 10, an exclusive trailer is released to the the MTV site.
- On October 4, 3DRealms files a trademark application for the name Tommy Tawodi.
- On October 27, Scott Miller and Green Monster Films Inc. sign a deal to develop a Prey movie (which never came to fruition).
- On November 29, a trailer for the Xbox 360 version of Prey is released.
- 2006: On January 5, 3DRealms announces that Prey will use PunkBuster.
- On January 12, new material is released on prey.com.
- On January 20, Human Head announces that Jeremy Soule is working at the soundtrack for Prey.
- On February 3, 3DRealms releases three audio files to let people know how Tommy, Jen and Enisi sound like.
- On April 19, Human Head announces that the collector's edition will include pewter figurines for Tommy, the Hunter, and the Mutate.
- On April 21, the "Super" Trailer is released, featuring a live action sequence, with an actor playing the silhouette of Tommy.
- On May 6, the "Portals and Gravity Flipping" trailer is released.
- On May 9, the Prey soundtrack is released in the DirectSong online store.
- On May 10, the E3 2006 trailer is released.
- On May 18, Prey wins the Best Shooter of E3 award from Gametap.
- On May 22, Prey wins the Best FPS of E3 Award.
- On June 8, even more material is released on prey.com.
- On June 19, the Xbox 360 Achievement list for Prey is posted.
- On June 21, a demo preview video is released for Gamespot.
- Shortly before the release of the demo, Sascha Konietzko reveals that the original Prey soundtrack will never be released because 3DRealms only paid him two thirds of the agreed sum.
- On June 22, Human Head releases the PC demo of Prey.
- On June 28, Human Head and 3DRealms announces that Prey has gone gold. Later, Scott Miller would say Prey would need 4 to 6 more months of development, to add a portal gun before Portal came out.
- On June 30, the Prey demo is released on the Xbox Live Marketplace.
- On July 11, Prey is released in North America, both as a physical game in stores and as a digital download in the (now defunct) online store Triton.
- On July 14, Prey is released in Europe.
- On July 17, the dedicated Prey server binaries for Linux are released.
- On July 20, the dedicated Prey server binaries for Windows are released.
- On August 1, 3DRealms launches the official Prey Wiki.
- On August 30, Human Head releases the patch v1.1.
- On September 15, Joe Siegler announces that the additional content for Prey will be free for both PC and Xbox 360, quashing rumors that it would be paid DLC.
- On October 9, a first version of the Prey SDK, including collision code, is released.
- On October 10, Human Head releases the patch v1.2, which includes additional player models and multiplayer levels. In the same day, 2K sets up a replacement program for people who had bought Prey from the defunct Triton digital delivery store, shipping a boxed copy to every customer.
- On October 14, a second version of the Prey SDK, which does NOT include collision code, is released.
- On October 21, Scott Miller announces that there will be a Prey sequel, developed by Human Head.
- On November 30, Prey is released on Steam.
- 2007: On January 14, the Prey demo for Macintosh is released.
- On February 14, Human Head releases the patch v1.3.
- On October 22, 3DRealms announces "Prey Mobile", a Prey version for mobile phones developed by Machineworks Northwest with an engine called RiPP3D, which resembles the Build engine.
- Scott Miller compiles a list of franchisable elements he thought of for Prey 2, including Tommy as a bounty hunter. After the IP transfer, Bethesda would keep the bounty hunter angle, but replace the protagonist.
- 2008: On January 10, Human Head releases the patch v1.4, which removes disc check and is the final patch for Prey.
- On March 18, Scott Miller announces that Prey 2 has switched from a 3DRealms project to a Radar Group project. Radar Group would then never release anything at all.
- On December 9, the Linux client for Prey is released.
- 2009: On June 11, Machineworks Northwest releases Prey Invasion, a port of Prey Mobile to iOS.
- On June 22, 3DRealms transfers the Prey IP to Radar Group.
- At the end of August, Radar Group sells the Prey IP to ZeniMax.
- On December 29, Steam runs out of keys for Prey, making it impossible to purchase by digital delivery.
- 2011: In March, Bethesda announces Prey 2 for a planned 2012 release.
- In June, Human Head shows a Prey 2 cinematic trailer at E3. The main character is revealed not to be Tommy, but Killian Samuels, one of the passengers of the airplane that is transported aboard the Sphere during the first Prey. The game is structured as an open world, with the main character moving in an alien city on a planet called Exodus.
- Bethesda verbally agrees to give Human Head an additional six months or more on the project to complete the game and still make the planned 2012 release, but does not mention the extension in the contract.
- During the following months, Bethesda denies further funding of the game. Instead, it starts pushing harder on milestones and requesting additional features for Prey 2, that would normally have been given appropriate time and monetized in payment to Human Head in the extension contract language if it were in writing.
- In November, Bethesda offers to buy out Human Head, but Human Head rejects the offer and quietly stops developing Prey 2, as a form of strike. According to Chris Rhinehart, at this point the game was very close to an alpha state, with all major content pieces represented.
- 2012: In March, Prey 2 is rumored to be cancelled. Neither Zenimax Nor Bethesda comment about the rumors.
- In April, Zenimax states that the game would not be released in 2012, that it had not progressed satisfactorily, and it did not meet their quality standards.
- In August, Bethesda removes Prey 2 from their site.
- 2013: In May, Kotaku reports that Arkane Studios is now developing Prey 2.
- On June 1, Jason Blair (former Prey 2 developer at Human Head) states that Prey 2 was a lot more than a demo, but a full, crazy fun game, while the reasons for its cancellation were political, petty and potentially litigable.
- 2014: In October, during PAX Australia, Bethesda announces that Prey 2 is officially cancelled.
- 2016: A new game called Prey, developed by Arkane Studios, is revealed at E3. Besides being set in a large space structure with aliens, it has nothing to do with the original Prey, but instead it shares many mechanics with System Shock.
- On July 10, the PreyWeb is discovered and uploaded online.
- 2017: On May 5, the new game called Prey is released worldwide.
- 2018: In April, John Anderson dies of pneumonia. +RIP+
- 2019: Scott Miller starts putting a deal together with Bethesda and Human Head to distribute what was done on Prey 2.
- On November 14, Bethesda acquires Human Head Studios and reopens it as Roundhouse Studios. This kills the deal from happening.
- 2020: On September 21, Microsoft announces the the $7.5 billion acquisition of Zenimax Media Inc. and gains control of all of its intellectual properties: The Elder Scrolls, Fallout, Doom, Quake, Wolfenstein, Starfield and Prey.
- 2022: On January 29, John William Galt, voice of Enisi, dies at age 81. +RIP+
- On May 10, an alpha version of Duke Nukem Forever dated October 26, 2001, is released for download on archive.org. Besides the obvious content, it includes textures, models and audio from Paul Schuytema's iteration of Prey.
- On November 17, Scott Miller publishes his 2007 Prey 2 ideas on Twitter.
- On December 25, an early alpha of Prey for MS-DOS with a single demo level, dated November 9, 1995, is released by talonbrave.info. This is from the Tom Hall iteration, with an engine developed by William Scarboro and never used for any released commercial project.
- 2023: On January 11, the contents of a CD of assets dated December 23, 1999 are released. They are mainly about Duke Nukem Forever, but more textures from Paul Schuytema's iteration of Prey are present.
- On February 14, Scott Miller releases an unused "Love Theme Sketch", composed by Jeremy Soule and meant from the Prey soundtrack.
- On September 9, a Prey port for Meta Quest is released.
- 2024: On February 19, the contents of a backup CD by Steve Hornback dated January 29, 1998 are released. It features a number of photos, presumably taken by Steve Hornback (though one photo appears to show him sitting at his desk), that were to be edited into textures for use in Prey, then repurposed for Duke Nukem Forever after Paul Schuytema's iteration of Prey was cancelled. Some photos have seemingly had some editing already done or in-progress at the time this backup was made.
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