I saw some chatter positing that the staff turnover isn’t particularly unusual. A former Prey dev, however, clarifies that the 70% figure does not include contractors.
This was way more than usual, and primarily experienced staff running for the hills as it became clear there was no good game there. All of the “additional” people in the credits are full time who left. Contractors are generally listed under the specific companies that were hired.
The parts about no clear design or direction or idea how to make a multiplayer immersive sim, confused teams, and Harvey saying it will be better when the final art is in… Those parts explain where the 70% went.
Schreier also popped into the Resetera thread to say the same thing:
Of the 80ish Arkane Austin staff who worked on Prey, 55ish are no longer at the studio, including the creative director, lead systems designer, lead level designer, and lead AI engineer. (Support staff, freelancers, and Arkane Lyon employees weren’t part of that tally.) Don’t need average industry attrition rates to surmise how monumental a change that’s been for the studio.
This wasn’t covered in the article, but Arkane were really unhappy with how Bethesda promoted Prey, too:
https://twitter.com/jasonschreier/status/1664294880724541440