Prey 2 appears to have some link with the original, but it seems pretty weak at best.
Tbh that's a good thing. I tried the original Prey. It does indeed seem good at first. But after a while I got really bored of the ever-so-identical environment I was in, the same types of problems at all times, and generally linear and repetitive gameplay. It wasn't as bad as FEAR 1 in that regard, but it wasn't that far either.
This one seems promising and the move to open ended gameplay is a rather radical move. We'll see how it turns out but frankly if I've been hearing things like "it's just like the original only better" I wouldn't even be interested at all. This way there's at least the possibility this game might turn out interesting.