The initial reports came from inside Arkane Austin. Lazarus is right. Arkane Austin, lead by Raphael Colantonio, are being forced to slap the Prey name on their next game. The important point here is that when the studio head was asked if they had taken over Prey 2 a few days after the Pete Hines interview, he had a different answer.
http://www.aliennoir...an-asks-arkane/ Pete Hines also said this:
http://www.edge-onli...companies-work/
However, Hines is keen to stress that despite scooping up talented studios such as id, Arkane and Machine Games, working relationships and studio culture come before empire building.
"It's really on a case by case basis and sort of what feels right and how do they fit into the kind of games we make, and our culture," he explains. "Personality is a big thing, you know?"
"In each case it didn't start off with: 'Who do we wanna buy next?' It's just, who are the kinda guys that we want to work with? How do we work with them? And then if that relationship just goes to the point where we're making a game with them, like we're doing with Human Head and Prey 2 or Splash Damage and Brink, then great. If there are interests beyond that in terms of multiple deals or becoming an internal studio, then we'll have that conversation."
When he said this, Splash Damage and Bethesda both had lawyers present at there meetings. They were trying to forcibly acquire the studio in a fire sale. A few months later, Human Head suffered the same fate. It's a technique that's been detailed in this thread before