Sad news, gamers.

The promising sequel Prey 2 has been officially canceled. Originally announced back in 2011, the game was handed off to a new publisher. Then about a year later, a delay was reported that would keep it from meeting its 2012 release date. Industry scuttlebutt believed that this was merely a political way of saying the game was either canceled or on indefinite hold. Prey 2 was officially in development hell.

Yesterday at PAX Australia, Bethesda Softworks vice president Pete Hines confirmed that Prey 2 had truly been canceled. CNet subsequently caught up with Hines to get more details.

"It was game we believed in, but we never felt that it got to where it needed to be — we never saw a path to success if we finished it," said Hines. "It wasn't up to our quality standard and we decided to cancel it. It's no longer in development. That wasn't an easy decision, but it's one that won't surprise many folks given that we hadn't been talking about it."

Hines later added that Bethesda still believes in the Prey franchise, and would like to do something with it. But the company hasn't yet figured out what that would be.

Prey 2 made a splash at E3 2011 with an incredible-looking cinematic trailer that showed off a dark, Blade Runner-esque alien world and the new human protagonist gamers were to play as. His name was Killian Samuels, and he was a U.S. Marshall who mysteriously wound up on the planet Exodus after a plane crash on Earth. Samuels couldn't remember how he came to be on Exodus, but the game picked him up a few years later, when he was now working as a highly skilled bounty hunter (using all sorts of cool sci-fi tools) while also searching for answers about his amnesia.

See for yourself, and tell me this wouldn't have made a killer gaming experience.

The game promised a unique blend of "vertical" gameplay amid the skyscrapers of Exodus, as well as a rich, living alien world to explore. Frankly, it sounded leaps and bounds more exciting than the original Prey.

Despite all that there was to love about what developer Human Head Studios had in mind, it sounds as though the studio was simply unable to deliver on its vision.