The Long Game
Developer Arkane Studios Publisher Bethesda Softworks Format PC, PS4, Xbox One Release 2017
Progress reports on the games we just can’t quit, featuring the shapeshifting Prey
Since Prey first landed, the outlook for immersive sims has only got bleaker. Deus Ex and Dishonored, arguably the modern standard bearers for this weird semi-genre, have both been put on pause, while Warren Spector’s return with Underworld Ascendant was met with a chilly reception. Seemingly in response,
Prey’s DLC has torn to shreds the orthodox approach of the original release in search of a new direction.
Its first expansion, Mooncrash, reimagined Prey as a firstperson Roguelike. You’re tasked with escaping a lunar landscape infested with Typhon, the game’s shapeshifting aliens, without dying – not once, but five times, as you guide different characters with their own abilities, strengths and weaknesses to salvation or doom. As in the games it takes inspiration from – the developers have referenced Spelunky, Dead Cells and
Darkest Dungeon – death means starting over. Relative to those games, the shape of the map doesn’t really change between runs, but redistribution of items and enemies keeps each playthrough varied.
More recently we’ve had the twin release of Typhon Hunt and Transtar VR, variants as unlike one another as they are the original game. The former extrapolates an asymmetrical multiplayer mode from one moment in the base game: the bit where alien Mimics, and later the player, disguise themselves as cups, paperweights and other innocuous props, wait for their quarry to pass and then launch a surprise attack. In five-minute rounds, players alternate between the roles of wrenchwielding protagonist and a scuttling member of Team Mimic. The idea owes a lot to the Prop Hunt mode that grew out of Garry’s Mod, but unfortunately this isn’t where the comparison ends – it feels like Arkane has produced a mod to its own game, with the associated production values. Transtar VR lifts the game’s theming and applies it to what are essentially virtual escape rooms. It’s a fascinating approach to expanding a game, but again the execution is wanting. Puzzles lack any real spark and the physics are a little shonky.
Playing Prey’s DLC is like viewing the original game through a succession of funhouse mirrors. But while the latter two are faintly amusing distractions, only Mooncrash really holds its shape. The genres it fuses slot together well – the added sense of risk means there’s more reason to find routes that skirt danger, while multiple characters force you to experiment with Prey’s various playstyles. It’s a surprisingly viable alternative to the game that spawned it. If the environment will no longer support more conventional immersive sims, then Mooncrash feels like it might have stumbled upon an evolutionary pathway for the series, Arkane or the genre at large to explore next.