Still others are at the mercy of security stations that can be manipulated through unorthodox ways, if you have the tools. Others are blocked by heavy objects that can be lifted, if you’re strong enough. Some can be hacked via a tolerable minigame, assuming you have the appropriate level of hacking to do so. Prey is full of locked doors, and I wanted to see behind every one. Image: Bethesda Softworks / Arkane Studios But others are more exploratory in nature. Some of these are combat-related, including bizarre supernatural abilities ranging from stealth to head-on combat. There’s a pervasive sense of loss in Prey’s halls, if you spend even a moment trying to listen, and as I snuck around, avoiding as much conflict as possible, I heard a lot of disturbing things.Īs you navigate Talos I, you’ll encounter a variety of obstacles, but Arkane has provided an involved skill tree system that allows you to spend points - albeit in a manner effectively and disturbingly grounded in Prey’s fiction - to gain new abilities. There are other, less subtle enemies, enemies that are more dangerous, though these are also even more tragic. Not even item pickups are safe, and shy of some special equipment later in the game, there's no way to know for sure without hitting an object or risking picking it up. Any object you see on Talos I could be an enemy in disguise. Prey’s alien menace, the Typhon, are capable of mimmicking other forms in Prey’s game world, and they do so in a largely unscripted fashion. Nothing is as it seems, whether that’s your own understanding of Morgan as a character or whether or not a coffee cup is going to try to kill you.įeel free to skip the next two paragraphs if even the most basic premise spoilers for Prey are too much - and honestly, I think you should go into the game knowing as little as possible about it. Put more simply, Prey consistently, successfully fucked with my head. Dick, but the execution successfully leverages Prey’s interactive nature. Prey’s influences seem to be movies like Solaris and writers like Philip K. Prey builds a conceit that calls into question any trust in the figures you meet - and possibly your own perception of what’s happening. The setting is a sparkling cosmonaut future haunted by a nightmarish specter, but narratively speaking it owes as much to noir and spy media. I won’t speak much about premise here, because the way the game starts, and the way the early game unfolds, is so key to the success of its ongoing appeal. Prey opens as protagonist Morgan Yu - whose gender you determine before the game begins - awakens to a mysterious nightmare underway on the space station Talos I. But when Prey opens up enough to ask questions without easy answers, and to let you unravel its mysteries, it’s something much less common - and much more successful. When Prey seems the most at the whim of "modern" first-person game ideas, it struggles to make the best case for itself. The result is a systems-driven adventure, one where levels are marginalized, supplanted instead by a believable, interconnected space station beset by an otherworldly force. Where Dishonored went back to the Thief series for inspiration, Prey takes its cues from the legendary development house Looking Glass’ other child - System Shock. Prey is a game about identity, wrapped in the clothing of a first-person shooter.ĭeveloped by Arkane Studios, the creators of Dishonored, Prey shares a similar heritage, even if the genes it expresses are different.
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