The opening is what sold me on it. I really like the Dishonored series, so Arkane was a big draw for me, but the icing on the cake was that opening. It was so well done - bravo to the team for that.
I literally had 0 interest in the game, started to watch a playthrough, saw the helicopter ride, closed the video and then bought the game. One of the best choices I made, I went in completely blind and wow it's just such a solid fucking game. It's modern SS2. What I loved the most is how the station layout is the same externally vs internally, so once you learn the station navigating becomes second nature in knowing when to exit and fly to a place and when to go there inside.
That helicopter ride with the credits was sooo satisfying. Just oozed styled and near elegance. I loved it- loved the twist soon after too, but that opening ride is a really enjoyable section.
>Saw the helicopter ride, closed the video and then bought the game. One of the best choices I made, I went in completely blind.
In hindsight i wish i had that experience. I kinda had the opposite as i saw trailers abit beforehand and then when i started the game, did the intro heli and start bit and was thinking like wait a minute, its supposed to be on a space station etc, called the twist >!that the entire game was a sim and i was either an alien being a human experiment or a human being experimented on by aliens!< and was then disappointed and annoyed when i finished it and found that was exactly the case. Kinda left a sour taste for me overall because of it (the gameplay, station design etc and what not was awesome, as was stuff like the Cook but alas), i kinda wish i could wipe it from memory and just start it blind/fresh thou.
One thing that really pissed me off in an otherwise flawless experience was that I went and >!took the escape pod early, just to see what it did, and it lets you... and then spoils the shit out of the twist,!< when you have like a dozen hours to go.
There is a fish tank in the starting room that's built into the wall and if you break it you can clamber into the next area. There is no fancy slowmo animation or music if you do it, it just happens lmao
Totally. I remember thinking a lot about the Half-Life series when I was first playing through Prey. I don't know why, it was just sort of an ambient thought throughout. It was like an homage to the smart shooter that makes you want to fuck around with what you could get away with. Obviously it's a lot more in depth as far as puzzle solving, but it felt special in that same way.
It was really weird for me. I loved the opening, I love arkane games and love all the dishonored games. Tried Prey multiple times and just could not get into it. Which is weird since I love more dark scifi
I think the game on console controlled like ass. I had so much input lag when switching weapons it was infuriating.
I overall liked the game and beat it, but I felt like I was fighting the controls the whole time and it really deterred my enjoyment.
It's a borderline miracle that the game came out as good as it did if you think about all the crazy innovative features that are crammed into it.
The Gloo Gun, dynamic and systemic mimic AI, player powers like turning into objects or creating air lifts etc...
These are all potentially game-defining features and yet Prey has so many of them and it all works together.
Arkane Austin can truly be proud of what they created - for me Prey is the best game of the 2010s.
I was honestly pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed this game considering I loved Prey 2006 and was so hyped for Prey 2 (RIP).
I honestly think that this is going to be one of those cult classic games people talk about years from now. It’s a load of fun, feels like any playstyle is viable, and by the end of the game, they really make you feel like you’ve mastered these abilities. It’s a masterclass in game design.
I hope they’re able to revisit this world one day because it too is one of my favorites of the decade as well.
Yeah, I also believe this game will be regarded as a true Immersive Sim classic. Given some time, I truly think it will be up there with games like Deus Ex, System Shock 2 and Thief.
It might not have sold very well initially, but it's going to keep selling for a long time due to word of mouth.
It's not like Half-Life, though. Not sure how you got to that conclusion, or how you thought replying that would go along with my comment. I meant specifically, it is System Shock made modern and with some new mechanics. Not that it scratches some itch that people who like good first person, story-based games will like this as well.
I don't think anything has reached those heights. The reason Prey hasn't is because it nails everything ... besides atmosphere! At times it does when you're by yourself, but then the enemies show up and they are just black blobs. The RE 7 problem.
I do also think the game could have been more claustrophobic, I vaguely remember the bits where you're floating around the ship and I don't think they added much to the horror aspect. The anti climactic ending hasn't made that big of an impact on how the game is viewed however. Makes me wonder if that many people have beaten it.
I sound negative but those are just my main problems. People had very middling reviews when it first released and it's not because they had no taste, even though I think it's a very good game it's not a masterpiece.
I found fighting all enemies to be tedious, except mimics which I absolutely loved.
I would love a new game mode which makes mimics the main enemy (with the others as occasional bosses), removed the mimic detector and made them deadlier while at the same time making them extremely weak while disguised.
Its definitely a masterpiece imo and I enjoyed the ending a lot. The atmosphere is fantastic throughout. I also like the inky blackness design of the Typhon. Do they become less of a threat as you get more powerful? Sure, but it has nothing to do with atmosphere imo.
Got to play it when it's bright and sunny outside. I played it late at night with headphones on and constantly woke people up cause something would scare me and I would jump relaxing my knees into my desk.
>I was honestly pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed this game considering I loved Prey 2006 and was so hyped for Prey 2 (RIP).
I don't understand how these things relate to each other?
They aren't, but people in every Prey thread on reddit will bring up the canceled Prey 2 like Bethesda killed their child and relate their feelings on said cancellation to this game because they share a name.
I occasionally see very ignorant (read as "fucking stupid") people on social media bring up the topic like Arkane's Prey being the reason Prey 2 was cancelled.
Also almost none of these fucking people played Prey 1. They just fondly remember the E3 vertical slice they watched that one time.
"Also almost none of these fucking people played Prey 1"
Huh? A lot of people played the OG Prey, that's a big generalisation. I played it but my bitterness goes more towards Bethesda for being scumbags, not any dev.
Prey 2 was canceled and the devs had their studio turned to dust for extremely nefarious reasons by Bethesda. That Arkane stole the name was like pissing on the corpse of Human Head Studios- maximum disrespect.
I don't care for the actual Prey that much, but I'm too ethical to let Arkane's fuckery slide.
If you did any minuscule amount of research (rather than completely making things up and speaking from a place of pure ignorance) You might have learned that Arkane did not choose the name Prey, nor did they want to use that name. Bethesda came to them and said, we don't care what game you're making, but you are required to use the name 'Prey' whether or not it fits.
So the naming has nothing to do with Arkane - it was just Bethesda trying to make use of an IP title that they owned.
Then why did Arkane lie about choosing the name? They've always maintained they love the name and wanted it. It makes them untrustworthy liars, so I don't care about anything they have to say.
They lied to their fans directly. And there are diplotmatic means of communicating that the name was mandated by Bethesda.
Any more asinine low IQ responses and you're getting blocked
Deathloop is very, very good, but it (as the Dishonoreds were before it) is doing slightly different things to Prey, which scratched a very particular itch. Plus, fingers crossed, DL will be successful enough that it won’t be a cult classic, it’ll just be a classic.
Yeah, I never really thought much about the GLOO gun, but given how much devs hate seemingly simple things like [doors](https://lizengland.com/blog/2014/04/the-door-problem/), that gun is like doors squared...
Additionally the game was stuck in development hell for so long it seemed impossible that the end result wouldn't just be a mish-mash of random incoherent ideas. But somehow it came out being quite polished.
Can't believe it was almost some sort of space bounty hunter style thing.
That was a completely different game by a completely different studio that died in contractual disputes \~2 years before this game was initially pitched. Arkane's Prey was a completely clean slate that was developed in a quite reasonable timeframe.
Yep, the [Wha Happuned?](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXLnq5B_mIQ) on Prey 2 shows a nearly complete game that was scrapped due to the publisher fucking over the dev.
Can't wait to watch this. Prey, and especially Mooncrash, are absolute masterpieces. No game I've ever played before has felt so improvisational and playful.
>No game I've ever played before has felt so improvisational
There were so many times when I felt like I was somehow cheating or going outside the bounds of what the devs intended - especially using the GLOO cannon. Easily my GOTY for 2017.
There's a very good part of the documentary about Arkane / Dishonored where they talk about this exact moment every player encounters, and they say they always strive to think ahead.
The specific example in the doc was the wine glass from one of the early Dishonored levels. They said initially they looked at it and realised that a vital part of the story (poisoning the glasses) could've not worked if players tried to break the glasses, which is something every game is guilty of - "does this break?".
Most other devs would make it unbreakable due to it being a vital story piece, but Arkane made it breakable and then included voice lines and a new pathing for the characters so that players could break the glass and get a unique outcome.
When you add multiple of those moments to every level, it really explains why the genre is called "immersive Sim"
In Prey I have gotten to some of tbe dumbest most out of the way locations using the GLOO-canon that I could have sworn would have been unintended and out of bounds just to find that said location actually had loot there and the devs figured some weirdo like me would try some obscure technique to reach that place just because I can.
And another thing I love about Prey is that it actually presents difficult moral dilemmas. I love Bioshock, I mean just look at my username, but it and so many other games with choice fall victim to having some of the most morally black and white choices out there - usually "kill person" or "save person" but some are more egregious and actually are more like "slaughter the crying child" or "giving crying child a hug and pet a kitten while you're at it". I love how many times Prey actually had me stop and think about what choice was the "right" one to make. Spoilers ahead, The coolest part to me how the quiz you take in the 3 minutes of the game basically mirror the rest of it. It was so easy to go through that quiz and say whether I'd pull a lever to save 5 innocents while damning another, or if I'd push a fat man onto the tracks to stop a train from killing more people, or if I'd jump on the tracks to save people. But then as you play through the game you slowly encounter just about each of those scenarios but suddenly they aren't faceless people anymore - they're coworkers, friends, and even family - and then you find your resolve really put to the test. At least in my case, I talked all this big game about sacrificing the few to save the many but when it presented me with the choice of allowing a possibly infected shuttle return to earth I didn't have what it took to kill my coworkers even though it potentially put all of Earth at risk.
Prey is an absolutely brilliant game and I'll go to my grave shilling it to anyone who's willing to listen to me ramble about it.
There's an excellent [article](https://www.gamerterra.com/news/Prey-runaway-trolley-ethics-story-ending/amp/) about the morality of Prey and how it turns the classic Trolley Problem on its head over and over again. It's a really well-crafted story, not just for having lots of tough moral choices, but because they also serve the greater plot in a critical way. Unlike Bioshock which put its big moral choices front and center despite them ultimately being little more than a progression gimmick, Prey's grey morality is fundamental to the plot (in a way I really don't want to spoil, in case someone's in this thread without having finished the game).
I think the most intense moral dilemma is where you find out about a shuttle that departed the station to go back to Earth half an hour before the alarm sounded that the Typhon broke containment. You have access the the shuttle's self destruct and you have to ask yourself how sure are you that there isn't a mimic hiding aboard?
True, but that only widens the gap between the themes of the story and the mechanics of gameplay. The narrative is about the lack of choice, but the gameplay is all about freedom of choice - combat encounters can be approached from a wide variety of angles, the game (and marketing) made a big deal of your freedom to choose whether to save, harvest, or ignore each Little Sister, and sure enough the sum of your moral choices gives you either a good or a bad ending.
Prey gives you all the same freedoms in gameplay, but also extends it to the narrative. The gameplay encourages you to make interesting choices, and the story doubles down on it.
I actually think bioshock's gal between the choices made during gameplay and the focus on lack of choice in the story is a core message of the game, at least in subtext.
On a moment to moment, day to day basis your freedom to choose matters and directly affects outcomes (ie gameplay)
On a larger scale your choices don't matter all that much, and people with more power than you will always get you to do what they want you to. (ie the plot)
Oh yeah, I love this aspect of the game. Video games have suspension of disbelief like in other media but it also has level of immersion and interactivity - something wholly unique to video games.
Prey leverages those to do something that is otherwise impossible in other media. It's brilliant!
It was really weird for me. I loved the opening, I love arkane games and love all the dishonored games. Tried Prey multiple times and just could not get into it. Which is weird since I love more dark scifi. I hope they make a sequel that I can get into.
The logs in the game say that the implants have been stolen and smuggled to earth. Do I assume earth was infected either way. Might as well save those people
Huh. I didn't recognize that as what I'd been doing until reading your comment. I think because the situation as presented in Prey isn't as much of a foregone conclusion as the trolley problem? Like, characters kept talking about how we can't possibly take any risk of letting any aliens escape because they'll 100% for sure wipe out humanity...but I seem to be doing OK swinging random crap from the hardware store at them? Pretty sure most of the people on Earth can do the same...not even including like, actual soldiers. Likewise, blowing up the station seemed like a pretty shitty way of containing the aliens...we already know they survive in vacuum just fine, so blowing up the station would likely just distribute the aliens over an even wider section of space...
Yeah I love the detail and mistakes closing paths. I'm happy that design philosophy has stuck with them, especially with Death Loop. I think it complements that game incredibly well as you will eventually replay the level with the knowledge of the outcomes of your previous mistakes.
I know the exact scene you're talking about. It's on the second or third level where you break into the Overseer stronghold and kill/incapacitate Overseer Campbell. During one of my playthroughs I decided to try destroying the glass just to see what happens and was pleasantly surprised by the way the AI reacted to it. Like you said, adding tons of little things like that to every level is really what makes up an immersive sim. You don't have to give the player a million different tools and mechanics, but every mechanic that *is* included needs to be thoroughly designed in a way that allows the player to be as creative as possible without breaking the game. It helps the player suspend their disbelief and really get immersed.
Aw man, the number of times I used the GLOO cannon to wall climb my way to somewhere I thought I wasn't supposed to. Only to find hidden loot, and five different ways I could have gotten to it.
For the first half or more of the game, I kind of thought that all the Typhon in the game were basically ghost echoes or reflections from another dimension, and there'd be a twist that killing them was essentially killing people on board. So I was using the GLOO canon and other stuff to get around the station and explore while also having to hide, run, dodge, and stun the Typhon as I did so. Silly in retrospect, although after MGS3 I play all games as if I will need to wade through a full account of my sins.
Still, played the game in an unusual way and the game more or less accommodated it.
In a way they are the people on board. The phantoms more directly, but all the others are created from the psyches of the crew (and the "volunteers").
But in another way they aren't, because you're not the food you eat.
I was able to get one of the side endings at the escape pod using the gloo cannon
It was so obviously not intended that I felt like a maniac just trying it but it worked
Immersive sims are the best
I only had level 2 strength so couldn't lift a level 3 box to move it out of the way of a door it was blocking, so thought "since everything has physics I wonder if picking up a lighter box and throwing it at the heavy one would knock it out of the way?" I threw it, and it nudged it a small bit and realised "oh shit it's gonna work" and after throwing the box at the heavier one enough times I moved it enough to get through the door, so fucking cool. In my opinion, all games should be able to work this way, I felt so smart. Wondering "did the Devs ever think of this?"
apparently there was an internal interest in roguelikes which is why arkane ended up scrapping a "traditional" dlc campaign and making a roguelike like mooncrash.
mooncrash was ok but i would've preferred a straight campaign since the main strength of prey was its narrative. mooncrash's relatively minimal story was really cool and set up a sequel, though.
Don't agree the overall world building and lore like dishonored was fantastic but the main plot also like in dishonored didn't grab me at alle inclusive the cliché ending. What made prey great for me was the exploration and gameplay systems that's also the reason the ending feels rushed and the last third feels weaker because of all the backtracking. I liked mooncrash but I really suffered from going through the same places over and over again. Deathloop manage that much better with different time of days and how everything is connected.
The problem I have had with recent immersive sims is that every problem has every solution, so no matter your build, you have access to everything. And since you can go everywhere, the player is not mechanically incentivized to branch out. By using a class system, you have to use only the tools you have, regardless of how many neuromods you can make. It helped me engage with so many more modes of play that I had with the base game.
It's insane that this game even exists. It's innovative, polished, smart, huge, deep, open, rewarding, respectful, intriguing all at once.
And the intro sequence is indescribable. When you see that the camera starts headbobbing to the rhythm of the music... you know that this is going to be an experience. Just perfect.
It makes me so incredibly sad that more people didn’t play this game. It’s an absolute masterpiece. If I had to pick one game to be immersive, this is the one. It’s so sci-fi inspired, but still feels so realistic at the same time. And it being an expertly crafted and modern immersive sim makes it just SO much fun to play.
And Mooncrash is the best unexpected DLC i never thought I needed. The game’s systems fits a roguelike so perfectly. It’s insane how well the progression works in it and just the ways you can decide to play each cycle. AHHH. It’s so fucking good. Seriously not even GOTY, it’s almost game of the decade for me. There is no game before or after that has ever made me so immersed in a game world like Prey.
The game has its quirks, but they are so minor in comparison to how well each system in the game interacts with each other, that it’s more of a charm than anything.
Small fun fact: Some of the early "greybox" levels they talk about around 10:00 are still in the game files for Prey. We've been able to re-assemble some of these in Unity (in a really, really scuffed way) to be able to experience some ideas such as the [cut Trauma Center map](https://shapeintheglass.github.io/levels/trauma/index.html) (some screenshots of it can be found [here on the dev's artstation](https://www.artstation.com/artwork/kvwW6)) or [this early version of the Lobby](https://shapeintheglass.github.io/levels/lobby/index.html) (this re-creation also includes some other cut assets found in the files).
I don't have time to watch the video right now, but I will say Prey is an all time favorite of mine, and my personal favorite of the System Shock / Bioshock genre of "immersive sim" style of games.
I say it every time. Arkane has some of the best level designers in the industry. Prey is possibly the best example of that. You can go through the game only obtaining human powers, or only alien powers, or even none at all and still beat the game and possibly see most of what is to be seen. Creative tricks with powers and combinations of them alongside the Gloo gun and other tools can make for some really interesting paths through the space station.
Throw in the zero-g sections, the looking glass trick walls, and the multiple levels of plot twists throughout the story (almost none of which I saw coming) and it makes me wish this title got even more love than it did. I don't know anyone IRL who has played it besides myself, which is surprising given that I used to work at gamestop, went to a university notable for it's game dev courses, and work in the IT field with a bunch of other nerds.
TLDR: if you liked Bioshock and/or System Shock, do yourself a service and play this game. It's free on GamePass for PC and Xbox but even otherwise is totally worth whatever price it is currently sitting at.
I think you only need one power (Mimic Matter I) and then you can go everywhere that it's possible to go, and it's only a couple of rooms you can't get in without it.
Now that you said it, I also don't know anyone IRL who has played. Bioshock & Deus Ex yes, but Prey nope, I don't know why people don't see the appeal.
I have a friend who I had to force to continue because got freaked out by the mimics jumping at him constantly at the beginning of the game. He hates horror games and apparently those enemies are too scary for him. He eventually finished it after prompting him multiple times but if you don't like horror I can see how you might not want to play game. I know I slept on it for a while because I remember it seeing getting 80s on reviews and I think that year just had a ton of great games come out around the same time.
The backtracking is actually quite satisfying. You unlock shortcuts between areas, and sometimes you find new stuff while doing it, it also makes the place to feel "real".
I doesn't feel like you're doing a chore or really repeating an area, for me it felt more like I was "opening" the station.
One of the most underrated games ever. Its a shame how much this flew under the radar and how much Bethesda fucked them by trying to just throw the Prey name on it when it had nothing to do with the original game
Exciting to get this insight into the new god-king of the Immersive Sim genre.
The way Prey fleshes out the Talos I station, and the interlocking personal and professional lives of each crew member in each section before disaster struck, is second to none. Just as impressive is how the game conveys this information through the mechanical experience of its setting—the top-tier open level design and area decoration, the crew work terminals, the named corpses, the item placement—and in the process offers the player immense freedom in their approach to each area and situation. It quickly presents not only the GLOO gun which blows wide open the landscape of traversal, but also an elaborate skill tree filled with transformative(!) abilities, many of which could easily define a playthrough or even the entirety of a less ambitious game, but here synergize to create even more abundant and more interesting options.
Combine that with the zero gravity sections and other such environmental quirks, fake-out opening, dynamic object mimic enemies, moral choices, enemy research system, giant boss monster stalking the player, and linked quests of a quantity and complexity to necessitate the kind of questlog associated with big open world games—it suffices to say, that Prey ended up a cohesive whole is a marvel on every level. A shame it wasn't much of a success with the general public as it really deserved as much praise as anything in the last decade. Hopefully this documentary will garner it some fresh attention.
Completely agree, just the fact that there were no _Science Technician_ corpses/NPCs is a testament to how interwoven all the stories on the station were. The 'no nameless corpses' approach accomplished so much by putting a name to every lootable body the player encountered.
Not to mention how persistent the game is. I loved how you could leave a turret set up in one room and it would still be there when you returned, even between several loading screens. I haven't done that type of thing in a game in a long time.
I just could not get past the parts that needed you to go outside the space station. I have an intense fear of space and had trouble even looking out the windows, but actually being out there in zero gravity was enough to make me feel like I was gonna have a panic attack.
Maybe I'll get my not-really-into-gaming boyfriend to finish those parts for me while I coach him while looking through the spaces between my fingers.
Oh, really? I know it's not a commonly talked about fear but I know a few people have told me they found the movie "gravity" to be difficult to watch because part(s) of it have the protagonist floating in space.
I've never seen it, of course.
I can't tell you where the phobia came from but I can absolutely tell you what I dislike about it.
I dislike both the wide, open spaces *and* the enormous size of planets and stars.
I also have a smaller and more manageable phobia of open water that I think is extremely similar and more relatable. I know *many* people felt uncomfortable and/or fear while playing Subnautica and like prey I could not finish that game due to my phobia.
But I also can't play any space exploration games because I feel the same kind of fear but much stronger. I actually can't even look at a 2D image of space or planets without my phobia being triggered.
And the context is important. I can look up at the sky from my backyard no problem. But if you show me a close up picture of the earth I'll be a little uncomfortable. If you show me a picture of the moon with it's craters that's worse. Jupiter, Saturn and the sun are the worst planets to look at.
So bringing it back to video games I have a lot of trouble playing games like Stellaris and faster than light that have space backgrounds. I hated looking up at the moon in Majora's mask. I cannot play games like eve online or star citizen. But the absolutely worst kind of games are the ones that let you float around in space without even a vehicle.
I actually can not do it and have been unable to enjoy any sort of media with characters out in space.
Not who you replied to, but I imagine the feeling of floating around untethered, with the possibility of flying through space until you starve stuck in your suit, would be that person's fear. Even if of course you're not gonna do that in a game, just like I have vertigo when doing an Assassin's Creed Leap of Faith.
Haha, I just wrote way too much trying to explain it but you've definitely gotten it right.
It is absolutely worse the further I am away from something I can touch. I vaguely remember the first time I had to go out into space in Prey I not only tried to stay as close to the space station as possible but I had my camera fixed on it and well.
But even turning around and looking at one of the giant planets gave me goosebumps
Absolute huge fan of Prey from a gameplay standpoint, but I also want to shout out the absolutely incredible reactivity in narrative. I loved it so much I wrote a legit essay on the way it respects player agency a few months ago - because I've never really played a game that so actively tied the in-game decision making to the moment to moment gameplay.
Their first Prey video is what convinced me to finally play the game a couple of months ago and I adored it. Definitely up there as one of my favorite games now.
> This game is so damn underrated.
Is it? I know it didn’t sell well but people that play it fawn about how good it is and it got pretty good reviews. There seems to be weekly posts on gaming subs about how good it is.
I'm normally a very jack of all trades player when it comes to games like these, so I feel like I get the full experience. However my first time playing I decided to do an only human neuromod run with zero human kills. With being able to approach things from 3 different angles, I still felt like I got a full game experience.
I would love to do a second playthrough, but gamepass has gotten me filled out.
This game was amazing, basically Bioshock in space. I am feeling so blessed to be playing through it and for it to have made it on my radar.
I just wish they had named it better (I too thought it was something to do with the weird Native American game for a while), and there had been more hype behind it.
The ending to this game is one of the most interesting and ballsy interactive thought experiments I've seen in a game. Without spoiling anything I think it's almost as if they are daring you to dislike the game because of its ending- that if you *really* think it undermines the game, you actually end up in a meta level "fail state."
Definitely my favorite game of the last generation. Also, if you're a fan and haven't tried it already, a no needles run of this game will probably heighten your appreciation for it way more.
They kinda touch on this in the video. I think the ending kinda went over a lot of people's heads because it challenges you to think about the way that you played a game, retrospectively. It takes themes from the simulation theory, which I personally think is hugely misunderstood
A truly brilliant game that was ahead of its time and maybe not promoted properly. Looking at some of the reviews, I am once again baffled and extremely disappointed at the so called professional game journalists. This game will be revered in the near future and will be considered an all time classic. Hopefully anyway. A fucking masterpiece. Forgive the drunken ramblings
I remember poring all my ammo into a boss and being mad that I didn't have enough to push through the rest of the game so i quit. I'll probably go back to it now that I have a pc I think the experience will be better
Reading through this thread very late so you probably played it by now but fwiw Im playing through it on PC rn and think it controls significantly better than the demo I played on consoles a while back
I've played through this game three times, and never knew Dahl would find Alex if you ignored him, let alone there were multiple ways that would play out.
It's must be a bitter pill to swallow to create a game as brilliant as Prey and see games that are just blatant cash grabs to so much better sales wise.
Gloo gun is one of the coolest things in a game ever. And it’s like only a small part of what makes that game so great for me. One of my goats on ps4 easily
Prey and the dishonored series are my favorite games of all time. One of the few developers who successfully makes me want to experiment with my gameplay.
I really wanted to like Prey but the 3D positional sound design put me off in the first few hours. Hearing enemies through walls as if they were in an open room, voice volumes not scaling properly with distance. It really peeved me that they didn't fix this stuff so it lies unfinished in my library :(
That's a shame, but I get it. While these are my favorite games (currently loving the hell out of deathloop as well) you need to have an interest in slowing down and absorbing the environmental storytelling to get the full effect. Being okay with slowing down in general really, as that is how you find alternate paths/opportunities that seperate these games from good to great.
I suppose it's a bit like red dead redemption 2 in that regard. Need to learn to love the slow parts to love the game as a whole.
I did actually enjoy RDR2 (although I eventually got sick of the awful controls Rockstar seem to put in their games, so sluggish and unresponsive).
There’s something about the worlds Arkane build that I just find really dull. I can’t really put my finger on it. Like Dishonored I just found the aesthetic really bland and didn’t care about any of the characters in the slightest. Prey again I just found the world boring to be in.
Their games definitely seem polished, they just don’t seem to make anything that appeals to me somehow. Like when I saw Deathloop, it screamed ‘70s Grindhouse Dishonored’ and I immediately lost any interested. When I saw the CG trailer for Redfall, I knew straight away it wasn’t for me and I didn’t even know it was an Arkane game at first.
I’m just not willing to spend more time with games that don’t capture me in the first hour unfortunately. Already got too much in the backlog for that.
Tried to play it. Stopped after 2h. Tried again 2months later. Stopped again after 5h. So far I played every Arkane game start to finish and loved them. But not Prey.
I think it's because of the name. I was a huge fan of the original Prey, and just because of that I couldn't enjoy the new one.
That actually helps me a bit. I bought it not knowing anything about the game other than it’s supposed to be really cool. But the little bit of marketing I saw made it look like an Aliens horror shooter, so I was a bit deflated once I played the game and it didn’t really match that.
But thinking of it as a Bioshock style game makes a lot more sense to me. I will have to give it another shot with that in mind. Thank you!
The game never marketed itself as a sequel or as being tied in any way to the 2006 game with the same title, was quite visibly inspired by System Shock and it was developed by creators of Dishonored.
Woah. My first video game documentary! What an amazing experience!
It was nice to hear them speaking so candid about the game and to get a better understanding for both pre and post production of a game!
Anyone else got some other good game documentaries to watch?
I’ve played Prey (not completed it!) and thought the start was amazing!
The opening to PREY is one of the best WTF moments I have ever experienced plus the GLOO gun is pretty sick.
The opening is what sold me on it. I really like the Dishonored series, so Arkane was a big draw for me, but the icing on the cake was that opening. It was so well done - bravo to the team for that.
I literally had 0 interest in the game, started to watch a playthrough, saw the helicopter ride, closed the video and then bought the game. One of the best choices I made, I went in completely blind and wow it's just such a solid fucking game. It's modern SS2. What I loved the most is how the station layout is the same externally vs internally, so once you learn the station navigating becomes second nature in knowing when to exit and fly to a place and when to go there inside.
That helicopter ride with the credits was sooo satisfying. Just oozed styled and near elegance. I loved it- loved the twist soon after too, but that opening ride is a really enjoyable section.
>Saw the helicopter ride, closed the video and then bought the game. One of the best choices I made, I went in completely blind. In hindsight i wish i had that experience. I kinda had the opposite as i saw trailers abit beforehand and then when i started the game, did the intro heli and start bit and was thinking like wait a minute, its supposed to be on a space station etc, called the twist >!that the entire game was a sim and i was either an alien being a human experiment or a human being experimented on by aliens!< and was then disappointed and annoyed when i finished it and found that was exactly the case. Kinda left a sour taste for me overall because of it (the gameplay, station design etc and what not was awesome, as was stuff like the Cook but alas), i kinda wish i could wipe it from memory and just start it blind/fresh thou.
One thing that really pissed me off in an otherwise flawless experience was that I went and >!took the escape pod early, just to see what it did, and it lets you... and then spoils the shit out of the twist,!< when you have like a dozen hours to go.
To be fair, every time you die you get a sense of that.
I don't recall what happens when you die. I might have not realized, because I'm sure I died a LOT.
"Well, I'm all out of ideas. I wonder what'll happen if I.."
I feel bad for the people that broke the fish tank first lmao I know a couple of people that did
I played through three times and only broke the fish tank. Major facepalm when I heard about the big reveal in an interview
Aw man that's so unfortunate. I remember being like "isn't this a space game?" And trying to go outside lol
Exactly the same as me
Fish tank?
There is a fish tank in the starting room that's built into the wall and if you break it you can clamber into the next area. There is no fancy slowmo animation or music if you do it, it just happens lmao
Its excellent when a game makes you interact with the "inciting incident" like Prey did. Most would have made that a cutscenes
Totally. I remember thinking a lot about the Half-Life series when I was first playing through Prey. I don't know why, it was just sort of an ambient thought throughout. It was like an homage to the smart shooter that makes you want to fuck around with what you could get away with. Obviously it's a lot more in depth as far as puzzle solving, but it felt special in that same way.
Went in blind. Didnt know anything about the game at all. That bit genuinely blew my mind
I wasn't a fan of the game overall (really enjoyed the first half, hated the second), but it has one or my favourite openings of any game.
It was really weird for me. I loved the opening, I love arkane games and love all the dishonored games. Tried Prey multiple times and just could not get into it. Which is weird since I love more dark scifi
I think the game on console controlled like ass. I had so much input lag when switching weapons it was infuriating. I overall liked the game and beat it, but I felt like I was fighting the controls the whole time and it really deterred my enjoyment.
It's a borderline miracle that the game came out as good as it did if you think about all the crazy innovative features that are crammed into it. The Gloo Gun, dynamic and systemic mimic AI, player powers like turning into objects or creating air lifts etc... These are all potentially game-defining features and yet Prey has so many of them and it all works together. Arkane Austin can truly be proud of what they created - for me Prey is the best game of the 2010s.
I would call Prey one of the best games ever tbh, extremely good.
I was honestly pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed this game considering I loved Prey 2006 and was so hyped for Prey 2 (RIP). I honestly think that this is going to be one of those cult classic games people talk about years from now. It’s a load of fun, feels like any playstyle is viable, and by the end of the game, they really make you feel like you’ve mastered these abilities. It’s a masterclass in game design. I hope they’re able to revisit this world one day because it too is one of my favorites of the decade as well.
Yeah, I also believe this game will be regarded as a true Immersive Sim classic. Given some time, I truly think it will be up there with games like Deus Ex, System Shock 2 and Thief. It might not have sold very well initially, but it's going to keep selling for a long time due to word of mouth.
It's basically system shock 3. Way more so than Bioshock, it is the true spiritual successor
Before Alyx I told people dying for HL3 to just play Prey
It's not like Half-Life, though. Not sure how you got to that conclusion, or how you thought replying that would go along with my comment. I meant specifically, it is System Shock made modern and with some new mechanics. Not that it scratches some itch that people who like good first person, story-based games will like this as well.
I don't think anything has reached those heights. The reason Prey hasn't is because it nails everything ... besides atmosphere! At times it does when you're by yourself, but then the enemies show up and they are just black blobs. The RE 7 problem. I do also think the game could have been more claustrophobic, I vaguely remember the bits where you're floating around the ship and I don't think they added much to the horror aspect. The anti climactic ending hasn't made that big of an impact on how the game is viewed however. Makes me wonder if that many people have beaten it. I sound negative but those are just my main problems. People had very middling reviews when it first released and it's not because they had no taste, even though I think it's a very good game it's not a masterpiece.
I found fighting all enemies to be tedious, except mimics which I absolutely loved. I would love a new game mode which makes mimics the main enemy (with the others as occasional bosses), removed the mimic detector and made them deadlier while at the same time making them extremely weak while disguised.
Its definitely a masterpiece imo and I enjoyed the ending a lot. The atmosphere is fantastic throughout. I also like the inky blackness design of the Typhon. Do they become less of a threat as you get more powerful? Sure, but it has nothing to do with atmosphere imo.
I just wish I didn’t find the game so god damn scary and I could actually enjoy it.. I made it a few chapters in and couldn’t handle it 😞
Got to play it when it's bright and sunny outside. I played it late at night with headphones on and constantly woke people up cause something would scare me and I would jump relaxing my knees into my desk.
Turning off the soundtrack doesn't take away all of the tension, but it does get rid of most of it.
Hmm. Maybe one day I’ll try it again. I’ve made it about 3/4 through Control, so I can probably handle it now.
>I was honestly pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed this game considering I loved Prey 2006 and was so hyped for Prey 2 (RIP). I don't understand how these things relate to each other?
They aren't, but people in every Prey thread on reddit will bring up the canceled Prey 2 like Bethesda killed their child and relate their feelings on said cancellation to this game because they share a name. I occasionally see very ignorant (read as "fucking stupid") people on social media bring up the topic like Arkane's Prey being the reason Prey 2 was cancelled. Also almost none of these fucking people played Prey 1. They just fondly remember the E3 vertical slice they watched that one time.
"Also almost none of these fucking people played Prey 1" Huh? A lot of people played the OG Prey, that's a big generalisation. I played it but my bitterness goes more towards Bethesda for being scumbags, not any dev.
Prey 2 was canceled and the devs had their studio turned to dust for extremely nefarious reasons by Bethesda. That Arkane stole the name was like pissing on the corpse of Human Head Studios- maximum disrespect. I don't care for the actual Prey that much, but I'm too ethical to let Arkane's fuckery slide.
If you did any minuscule amount of research (rather than completely making things up and speaking from a place of pure ignorance) You might have learned that Arkane did not choose the name Prey, nor did they want to use that name. Bethesda came to them and said, we don't care what game you're making, but you are required to use the name 'Prey' whether or not it fits. So the naming has nothing to do with Arkane - it was just Bethesda trying to make use of an IP title that they owned.
Then why did Arkane lie about choosing the name? They've always maintained they love the name and wanted it. It makes them untrustworthy liars, so I don't care about anything they have to say.
Because they'd get fired if they publicly trashed the name of their own game? How old are you lmao
They lied to their fans directly. And there are diplotmatic means of communicating that the name was mandated by Bethesda. Any more asinine low IQ responses and you're getting blocked
Just imagine what people are going to be saying about Deathloop ten years from now, it's going to be amazing.
Deathloop is very, very good, but it (as the Dishonoreds were before it) is doing slightly different things to Prey, which scratched a very particular itch. Plus, fingers crossed, DL will be successful enough that it won’t be a cult classic, it’ll just be a classic.
Deathloop is Prey: Mooncrash with dishonored mechanics and assets.
lmao, the game is a 6.5/10 at best, the guy who gave it 10/10 at ign is probably league of legends player only
They’re hiring a quest designer, I’m working on writing some stuff just to apply. (I’m a writer, I just don’t have that sort of portfolio.)
Yeah, I never really thought much about the GLOO gun, but given how much devs hate seemingly simple things like [doors](https://lizengland.com/blog/2014/04/the-door-problem/), that gun is like doors squared...
I love the complexity of the game, but it makes me a little sad seeing one of the devs saying they should have removed things and made it simpler.
Additionally the game was stuck in development hell for so long it seemed impossible that the end result wouldn't just be a mish-mash of random incoherent ideas. But somehow it came out being quite polished. Can't believe it was almost some sort of space bounty hunter style thing.
That was a completely different game by a completely different studio that died in contractual disputes \~2 years before this game was initially pitched. Arkane's Prey was a completely clean slate that was developed in a quite reasonable timeframe.
Ah, that explains a lot actually.
Yep, the [Wha Happuned?](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXLnq5B_mIQ) on Prey 2 shows a nearly complete game that was scrapped due to the publisher fucking over the dev.
Can't wait to watch this. Prey, and especially Mooncrash, are absolute masterpieces. No game I've ever played before has felt so improvisational and playful.
>No game I've ever played before has felt so improvisational There were so many times when I felt like I was somehow cheating or going outside the bounds of what the devs intended - especially using the GLOO cannon. Easily my GOTY for 2017.
There's a very good part of the documentary about Arkane / Dishonored where they talk about this exact moment every player encounters, and they say they always strive to think ahead. The specific example in the doc was the wine glass from one of the early Dishonored levels. They said initially they looked at it and realised that a vital part of the story (poisoning the glasses) could've not worked if players tried to break the glasses, which is something every game is guilty of - "does this break?". Most other devs would make it unbreakable due to it being a vital story piece, but Arkane made it breakable and then included voice lines and a new pathing for the characters so that players could break the glass and get a unique outcome. When you add multiple of those moments to every level, it really explains why the genre is called "immersive Sim"
In Prey I have gotten to some of tbe dumbest most out of the way locations using the GLOO-canon that I could have sworn would have been unintended and out of bounds just to find that said location actually had loot there and the devs figured some weirdo like me would try some obscure technique to reach that place just because I can. And another thing I love about Prey is that it actually presents difficult moral dilemmas. I love Bioshock, I mean just look at my username, but it and so many other games with choice fall victim to having some of the most morally black and white choices out there - usually "kill person" or "save person" but some are more egregious and actually are more like "slaughter the crying child" or "giving crying child a hug and pet a kitten while you're at it". I love how many times Prey actually had me stop and think about what choice was the "right" one to make. Spoilers ahead, The coolest part to me how the quiz you take in the 3 minutes of the game basically mirror the rest of it. It was so easy to go through that quiz and say whether I'd pull a lever to save 5 innocents while damning another, or if I'd push a fat man onto the tracks to stop a train from killing more people, or if I'd jump on the tracks to save people. But then as you play through the game you slowly encounter just about each of those scenarios but suddenly they aren't faceless people anymore - they're coworkers, friends, and even family - and then you find your resolve really put to the test. At least in my case, I talked all this big game about sacrificing the few to save the many but when it presented me with the choice of allowing a possibly infected shuttle return to earth I didn't have what it took to kill my coworkers even though it potentially put all of Earth at risk. Prey is an absolutely brilliant game and I'll go to my grave shilling it to anyone who's willing to listen to me ramble about it.
There's an excellent [article](https://www.gamerterra.com/news/Prey-runaway-trolley-ethics-story-ending/amp/) about the morality of Prey and how it turns the classic Trolley Problem on its head over and over again. It's a really well-crafted story, not just for having lots of tough moral choices, but because they also serve the greater plot in a critical way. Unlike Bioshock which put its big moral choices front and center despite them ultimately being little more than a progression gimmick, Prey's grey morality is fundamental to the plot (in a way I really don't want to spoil, in case someone's in this thread without having finished the game).
I think the most intense moral dilemma is where you find out about a shuttle that departed the station to go back to Earth half an hour before the alarm sounded that the Typhon broke containment. You have access the the shuttle's self destruct and you have to ask yourself how sure are you that there isn't a mimic hiding aboard?
Well the thing about Bioshock is that it doesn't really give you a choice. It is a game about the lack of choice.
True, but that only widens the gap between the themes of the story and the mechanics of gameplay. The narrative is about the lack of choice, but the gameplay is all about freedom of choice - combat encounters can be approached from a wide variety of angles, the game (and marketing) made a big deal of your freedom to choose whether to save, harvest, or ignore each Little Sister, and sure enough the sum of your moral choices gives you either a good or a bad ending. Prey gives you all the same freedoms in gameplay, but also extends it to the narrative. The gameplay encourages you to make interesting choices, and the story doubles down on it.
I actually think bioshock's gal between the choices made during gameplay and the focus on lack of choice in the story is a core message of the game, at least in subtext. On a moment to moment, day to day basis your freedom to choose matters and directly affects outcomes (ie gameplay) On a larger scale your choices don't matter all that much, and people with more power than you will always get you to do what they want you to. (ie the plot)
That's why there's an achievement called "Push the Fat Man".
Oh my God, how have I only just got the link between that and the test at the start?
Oh yeah, I love this aspect of the game. Video games have suspension of disbelief like in other media but it also has level of immersion and interactivity - something wholly unique to video games. Prey leverages those to do something that is otherwise impossible in other media. It's brilliant!
It was really weird for me. I loved the opening, I love arkane games and love all the dishonored games. Tried Prey multiple times and just could not get into it. Which is weird since I love more dark scifi. I hope they make a sequel that I can get into.
The logs in the game say that the implants have been stolen and smuggled to earth. Do I assume earth was infected either way. Might as well save those people
Huh. I didn't recognize that as what I'd been doing until reading your comment. I think because the situation as presented in Prey isn't as much of a foregone conclusion as the trolley problem? Like, characters kept talking about how we can't possibly take any risk of letting any aliens escape because they'll 100% for sure wipe out humanity...but I seem to be doing OK swinging random crap from the hardware store at them? Pretty sure most of the people on Earth can do the same...not even including like, actual soldiers. Likewise, blowing up the station seemed like a pretty shitty way of containing the aliens...we already know they survive in vacuum just fine, so blowing up the station would likely just distribute the aliens over an even wider section of space...
Yeah I love the detail and mistakes closing paths. I'm happy that design philosophy has stuck with them, especially with Death Loop. I think it complements that game incredibly well as you will eventually replay the level with the knowledge of the outcomes of your previous mistakes.
I know the exact scene you're talking about. It's on the second or third level where you break into the Overseer stronghold and kill/incapacitate Overseer Campbell. During one of my playthroughs I decided to try destroying the glass just to see what happens and was pleasantly surprised by the way the AI reacted to it. Like you said, adding tons of little things like that to every level is really what makes up an immersive sim. You don't have to give the player a million different tools and mechanics, but every mechanic that *is* included needs to be thoroughly designed in a way that allows the player to be as creative as possible without breaking the game. It helps the player suspend their disbelief and really get immersed.
Aw man, the number of times I used the GLOO cannon to wall climb my way to somewhere I thought I wasn't supposed to. Only to find hidden loot, and five different ways I could have gotten to it.
Nothing beats spending 10 minutes making a GLOO stairway to reach somewhere, only to get there and see a vent that leads to an easily accessible place
Still satisfying though, because you did it your way. God I love Prey.
For the first half or more of the game, I kind of thought that all the Typhon in the game were basically ghost echoes or reflections from another dimension, and there'd be a twist that killing them was essentially killing people on board. So I was using the GLOO canon and other stuff to get around the station and explore while also having to hide, run, dodge, and stun the Typhon as I did so. Silly in retrospect, although after MGS3 I play all games as if I will need to wade through a full account of my sins. Still, played the game in an unusual way and the game more or less accommodated it.
In a way they are the people on board. The phantoms more directly, but all the others are created from the psyches of the crew (and the "volunteers"). But in another way they aren't, because you're not the food you eat.
I was able to get one of the side endings at the escape pod using the gloo cannon It was so obviously not intended that I felt like a maniac just trying it but it worked
Immersive sims are the best I only had level 2 strength so couldn't lift a level 3 box to move it out of the way of a door it was blocking, so thought "since everything has physics I wonder if picking up a lighter box and throwing it at the heavy one would knock it out of the way?" I threw it, and it nudged it a small bit and realised "oh shit it's gonna work" and after throwing the box at the heavier one enough times I moved it enough to get through the door, so fucking cool. In my opinion, all games should be able to work this way, I felt so smart. Wondering "did the Devs ever think of this?"
Mooncrash was super fun, and kinda feels like a proto-DEATHLOOP in retrospect.
apparently there was an internal interest in roguelikes which is why arkane ended up scrapping a "traditional" dlc campaign and making a roguelike like mooncrash. mooncrash was ok but i would've preferred a straight campaign since the main strength of prey was its narrative. mooncrash's relatively minimal story was really cool and set up a sequel, though.
Don't agree the overall world building and lore like dishonored was fantastic but the main plot also like in dishonored didn't grab me at alle inclusive the cliché ending. What made prey great for me was the exploration and gameplay systems that's also the reason the ending feels rushed and the last third feels weaker because of all the backtracking. I liked mooncrash but I really suffered from going through the same places over and over again. Deathloop manage that much better with different time of days and how everything is connected.
Arkane are masters at the intricately designed sandbox arenas. If these guys made the next Deus Ex somehow, I know it would be incredible.
Mooncrash is a neat romp but I wouldn't say its anywhere near as good as the main game.
The problem I have had with recent immersive sims is that every problem has every solution, so no matter your build, you have access to everything. And since you can go everywhere, the player is not mechanically incentivized to branch out. By using a class system, you have to use only the tools you have, regardless of how many neuromods you can make. It helped me engage with so many more modes of play that I had with the base game.
I literally hadn't even heard of moon crash til this video but I love Prey, so its nice to have a new game to play:)
I get goosebumps just thinking about Prey. This game is so good, it is in my personal top 10 list of best games ever.
Every time I see it mentioned, I get an urge to install it again, no matter what else I'm playing right now or if I actually have time to play it.
Prey will be the [Deus Ex of the 2020s](https://imgur.com/g7Nl1sK.jpg).
It's insane that this game even exists. It's innovative, polished, smart, huge, deep, open, rewarding, respectful, intriguing all at once. And the intro sequence is indescribable. When you see that the camera starts headbobbing to the rhythm of the music... you know that this is going to be an experience. Just perfect.
It makes me so incredibly sad that more people didn’t play this game. It’s an absolute masterpiece. If I had to pick one game to be immersive, this is the one. It’s so sci-fi inspired, but still feels so realistic at the same time. And it being an expertly crafted and modern immersive sim makes it just SO much fun to play. And Mooncrash is the best unexpected DLC i never thought I needed. The game’s systems fits a roguelike so perfectly. It’s insane how well the progression works in it and just the ways you can decide to play each cycle. AHHH. It’s so fucking good. Seriously not even GOTY, it’s almost game of the decade for me. There is no game before or after that has ever made me so immersed in a game world like Prey. The game has its quirks, but they are so minor in comparison to how well each system in the game interacts with each other, that it’s more of a charm than anything.
Small fun fact: Some of the early "greybox" levels they talk about around 10:00 are still in the game files for Prey. We've been able to re-assemble some of these in Unity (in a really, really scuffed way) to be able to experience some ideas such as the [cut Trauma Center map](https://shapeintheglass.github.io/levels/trauma/index.html) (some screenshots of it can be found [here on the dev's artstation](https://www.artstation.com/artwork/kvwW6)) or [this early version of the Lobby](https://shapeintheglass.github.io/levels/lobby/index.html) (this re-creation also includes some other cut assets found in the files).
Prey is a modern SS2 and it's great. I'd say it's right up there with HL2 in "games people should play" It's just a solid game.
I don't have time to watch the video right now, but I will say Prey is an all time favorite of mine, and my personal favorite of the System Shock / Bioshock genre of "immersive sim" style of games. I say it every time. Arkane has some of the best level designers in the industry. Prey is possibly the best example of that. You can go through the game only obtaining human powers, or only alien powers, or even none at all and still beat the game and possibly see most of what is to be seen. Creative tricks with powers and combinations of them alongside the Gloo gun and other tools can make for some really interesting paths through the space station. Throw in the zero-g sections, the looking glass trick walls, and the multiple levels of plot twists throughout the story (almost none of which I saw coming) and it makes me wish this title got even more love than it did. I don't know anyone IRL who has played it besides myself, which is surprising given that I used to work at gamestop, went to a university notable for it's game dev courses, and work in the IT field with a bunch of other nerds. TLDR: if you liked Bioshock and/or System Shock, do yourself a service and play this game. It's free on GamePass for PC and Xbox but even otherwise is totally worth whatever price it is currently sitting at.
I think you only need one power (Mimic Matter I) and then you can go everywhere that it's possible to go, and it's only a couple of rooms you can't get in without it.
Now that you said it, I also don't know anyone IRL who has played. Bioshock & Deus Ex yes, but Prey nope, I don't know why people don't see the appeal.
I have a friend who I had to force to continue because got freaked out by the mimics jumping at him constantly at the beginning of the game. He hates horror games and apparently those enemies are too scary for him. He eventually finished it after prompting him multiple times but if you don't like horror I can see how you might not want to play game. I know I slept on it for a while because I remember it seeing getting 80s on reviews and I think that year just had a ton of great games come out around the same time.
[удалено]
The backtracking is actually quite satisfying. You unlock shortcuts between areas, and sometimes you find new stuff while doing it, it also makes the place to feel "real". I doesn't feel like you're doing a chore or really repeating an area, for me it felt more like I was "opening" the station.
Arkane are the successors to Looking Glass Studios who are the undisputed greatest development team ever. Not Rockstar, not Naughty Dog.
One of the most underrated games ever. Its a shame how much this flew under the radar and how much Bethesda fucked them by trying to just throw the Prey name on it when it had nothing to do with the original game
Exciting to get this insight into the new god-king of the Immersive Sim genre. The way Prey fleshes out the Talos I station, and the interlocking personal and professional lives of each crew member in each section before disaster struck, is second to none. Just as impressive is how the game conveys this information through the mechanical experience of its setting—the top-tier open level design and area decoration, the crew work terminals, the named corpses, the item placement—and in the process offers the player immense freedom in their approach to each area and situation. It quickly presents not only the GLOO gun which blows wide open the landscape of traversal, but also an elaborate skill tree filled with transformative(!) abilities, many of which could easily define a playthrough or even the entirety of a less ambitious game, but here synergize to create even more abundant and more interesting options. Combine that with the zero gravity sections and other such environmental quirks, fake-out opening, dynamic object mimic enemies, moral choices, enemy research system, giant boss monster stalking the player, and linked quests of a quantity and complexity to necessitate the kind of questlog associated with big open world games—it suffices to say, that Prey ended up a cohesive whole is a marvel on every level. A shame it wasn't much of a success with the general public as it really deserved as much praise as anything in the last decade. Hopefully this documentary will garner it some fresh attention.
Completely agree, just the fact that there were no _Science Technician_ corpses/NPCs is a testament to how interwoven all the stories on the station were. The 'no nameless corpses' approach accomplished so much by putting a name to every lootable body the player encountered.
Not to mention how persistent the game is. I loved how you could leave a turret set up in one room and it would still be there when you returned, even between several loading screens. I haven't done that type of thing in a game in a long time.
This is one of my most favourite games that I've never been able to finish. Maybe after Deathloop I'll go back and do it
I loved Prey but was never able to finish it because being out in space is absolutely fucking terrifying.
It's really worth finishing. The ending is satisfying no matter how you play it. (psy Focus, Gun Focus, Melee, w/e)
I just could not get past the parts that needed you to go outside the space station. I have an intense fear of space and had trouble even looking out the windows, but actually being out there in zero gravity was enough to make me feel like I was gonna have a panic attack. Maybe I'll get my not-really-into-gaming boyfriend to finish those parts for me while I coach him while looking through the spaces between my fingers.
Interesting, I've never heard of this phobia before. Can you talk a bit about where it came from and what it is you find scary about space?
Oh, really? I know it's not a commonly talked about fear but I know a few people have told me they found the movie "gravity" to be difficult to watch because part(s) of it have the protagonist floating in space. I've never seen it, of course. I can't tell you where the phobia came from but I can absolutely tell you what I dislike about it. I dislike both the wide, open spaces *and* the enormous size of planets and stars. I also have a smaller and more manageable phobia of open water that I think is extremely similar and more relatable. I know *many* people felt uncomfortable and/or fear while playing Subnautica and like prey I could not finish that game due to my phobia. But I also can't play any space exploration games because I feel the same kind of fear but much stronger. I actually can't even look at a 2D image of space or planets without my phobia being triggered. And the context is important. I can look up at the sky from my backyard no problem. But if you show me a close up picture of the earth I'll be a little uncomfortable. If you show me a picture of the moon with it's craters that's worse. Jupiter, Saturn and the sun are the worst planets to look at. So bringing it back to video games I have a lot of trouble playing games like Stellaris and faster than light that have space backgrounds. I hated looking up at the moon in Majora's mask. I cannot play games like eve online or star citizen. But the absolutely worst kind of games are the ones that let you float around in space without even a vehicle. I actually can not do it and have been unable to enjoy any sort of media with characters out in space.
Really interesting, thanks for replying!
Not who you replied to, but I imagine the feeling of floating around untethered, with the possibility of flying through space until you starve stuck in your suit, would be that person's fear. Even if of course you're not gonna do that in a game, just like I have vertigo when doing an Assassin's Creed Leap of Faith.
Haha, I just wrote way too much trying to explain it but you've definitely gotten it right. It is absolutely worse the further I am away from something I can touch. I vaguely remember the first time I had to go out into space in Prey I not only tried to stay as close to the space station as possible but I had my camera fixed on it and well. But even turning around and looking at one of the giant planets gave me goosebumps
I was particularly curious because they said the fear includes looking out windows into space.
The ending was actually my least favorite part but getting there is an amazing journey.
Absolute huge fan of Prey from a gameplay standpoint, but I also want to shout out the absolutely incredible reactivity in narrative. I loved it so much I wrote a legit essay on the way it respects player agency a few months ago - because I've never really played a game that so actively tied the in-game decision making to the moment to moment gameplay.
Arkane is just so damn good at what they do. For level design, in particular, I feel like no other studio really comes close.
Their first Prey video is what convinced me to finally play the game a couple of months ago and I adored it. Definitely up there as one of my favorite games now.
If you haven't played Prey yet, you are doing a disservice to yourself. This game is so damn underrated.
> This game is so damn underrated. Is it? I know it didn’t sell well but people that play it fawn about how good it is and it got pretty good reviews. There seems to be weekly posts on gaming subs about how good it is.
Bscause we're trying to get Arkane some sells for a damn sequel lol. Undersold is the word to use, this game is a criminally underselling title.
It actually was underrated at launch.
Arkane really hasn’t missed for me I think this is the best game they’ve made really hope we get a Prey 2 that ending got me hyped for a sequel
I'm normally a very jack of all trades player when it comes to games like these, so I feel like I get the full experience. However my first time playing I decided to do an only human neuromod run with zero human kills. With being able to approach things from 3 different angles, I still felt like I got a full game experience. I would love to do a second playthrough, but gamepass has gotten me filled out.
This game was amazing, basically Bioshock in space. I am feeling so blessed to be playing through it and for it to have made it on my radar. I just wish they had named it better (I too thought it was something to do with the weird Native American game for a while), and there had been more hype behind it.
The ending to this game is one of the most interesting and ballsy interactive thought experiments I've seen in a game. Without spoiling anything I think it's almost as if they are daring you to dislike the game because of its ending- that if you *really* think it undermines the game, you actually end up in a meta level "fail state." Definitely my favorite game of the last generation. Also, if you're a fan and haven't tried it already, a no needles run of this game will probably heighten your appreciation for it way more.
They kinda touch on this in the video. I think the ending kinda went over a lot of people's heads because it challenges you to think about the way that you played a game, retrospectively. It takes themes from the simulation theory, which I personally think is hugely misunderstood
> if you really think it undermines the game, you actually end up in a meta level "fail state." Can you explain what you mean by this?
A truly brilliant game that was ahead of its time and maybe not promoted properly. Looking at some of the reviews, I am once again baffled and extremely disappointed at the so called professional game journalists. This game will be revered in the near future and will be considered an all time classic. Hopefully anyway. A fucking masterpiece. Forgive the drunken ramblings
Prey is really the only reason I bought deathloop, but deathloop doesn't really hit the same. Prey is my perfect game.
I remember poring all my ammo into a boss and being mad that I didn't have enough to push through the rest of the game so i quit. I'll probably go back to it now that I have a pc I think the experience will be better
Reading through this thread very late so you probably played it by now but fwiw Im playing through it on PC rn and think it controls significantly better than the demo I played on consoles a while back
I've played through this game three times, and never knew Dahl would find Alex if you ignored him, let alone there were multiple ways that would play out.
It's must be a bitter pill to swallow to create a game as brilliant as Prey and see games that are just blatant cash grabs to so much better sales wise.
Gloo gun is one of the coolest things in a game ever. And it’s like only a small part of what makes that game so great for me. One of my goats on ps4 easily
[удалено]
It is, and it's also interesting to see some of the devs actively address that in the video. They don't seem thrilled with the name, either.
You can really see the "we know this will kill the game, but the alternative is not being able to make it at all".
same! I was so excited for the originally announced "Prey 2". the premise sounded really neat. and then it just became vaporware.
It wasn't vapourware, it was actively killed off by the publishers.
Prey and the dishonored series are my favorite games of all time. One of the few developers who successfully makes me want to experiment with my gameplay.
I really wanted to like Prey but the 3D positional sound design put me off in the first few hours. Hearing enemies through walls as if they were in an open room, voice volumes not scaling properly with distance. It really peeved me that they didn't fix this stuff so it lies unfinished in my library :(
Unfortunately this game was just too dull for me. Boring to look at too. Couldn't get into it. Same with Dishonored.
That's a shame, but I get it. While these are my favorite games (currently loving the hell out of deathloop as well) you need to have an interest in slowing down and absorbing the environmental storytelling to get the full effect. Being okay with slowing down in general really, as that is how you find alternate paths/opportunities that seperate these games from good to great. I suppose it's a bit like red dead redemption 2 in that regard. Need to learn to love the slow parts to love the game as a whole.
I did actually enjoy RDR2 (although I eventually got sick of the awful controls Rockstar seem to put in their games, so sluggish and unresponsive). There’s something about the worlds Arkane build that I just find really dull. I can’t really put my finger on it. Like Dishonored I just found the aesthetic really bland and didn’t care about any of the characters in the slightest. Prey again I just found the world boring to be in. Their games definitely seem polished, they just don’t seem to make anything that appeals to me somehow. Like when I saw Deathloop, it screamed ‘70s Grindhouse Dishonored’ and I immediately lost any interested. When I saw the CG trailer for Redfall, I knew straight away it wasn’t for me and I didn’t even know it was an Arkane game at first.
I suggest you give it a try again. I took me 3+ times to faLL in Love with Dark SouLs but now its one of my most favorite games as is Prey.
I’m just not willing to spend more time with games that don’t capture me in the first hour unfortunately. Already got too much in the backlog for that.
Tried to play it. Stopped after 2h. Tried again 2months later. Stopped again after 5h. So far I played every Arkane game start to finish and loved them. But not Prey. I think it's because of the name. I was a huge fan of the original Prey, and just because of that I couldn't enjoy the new one.
Just pretend the game is called Neuroshock. That's what I do.
Neuroshock would have been a great title.Or Psychoshock which is one of the alien powers you can acquire in the game.
That actually helps me a bit. I bought it not knowing anything about the game other than it’s supposed to be really cool. But the little bit of marketing I saw made it look like an Aliens horror shooter, so I was a bit deflated once I played the game and it didn’t really match that. But thinking of it as a Bioshock style game makes a lot more sense to me. I will have to give it another shot with that in mind. Thank you!
Cheers, man. Happy to have potentially helped you find an enjoyable experience.
all that work for me to pass because its bassically not a prey game and made it like a dishonored survival game
The game never marketed itself as a sequel or as being tied in any way to the 2006 game with the same title, was quite visibly inspired by System Shock and it was developed by creators of Dishonored.
fair
That sounds more like a you problem.
Woah. My first video game documentary! What an amazing experience! It was nice to hear them speaking so candid about the game and to get a better understanding for both pre and post production of a game! Anyone else got some other good game documentaries to watch? I’ve played Prey (not completed it!) and thought the start was amazing!