Prey
Pray you don’t run out of bullets…
DEVELOPER ARKANE STUDIOS
PUBLISHER BETHESDA SOFTWORKS
PRICE $ 79.95
AVAILABLE AT STEAM, RETAIL PREY.BETHESDA.NET
What a fascinating history the Prey brand has. This game bears no resemblance to previous titles – either the first Prey that came out in 2006, or the much-liked and nonreleased Prey 2, promised by Bethesda but eventually cancelled back in 2014. In fact, the only real link is in structure – you’re alone, in space, and you have to fight aliens with strange powers with your own strange powers.
But Prey – the 2017 Prey, which is all we’ll talk about from this point – also has its own rich history, albeit one that is internal to the game. In this world, JFK lived, more money went into the space program, and the US and Russia build a large station in orbit to house a hostile alien species – the Typhon. By 2032 and the game’s modern day this station is now a giant corporate concern, and run by the Transtar corporation, and is the centre for their research efforts into fusing alien neural patterns with human ones.
It’s kind of baroque, but it’s a great excuse for giving the player a mess of funky toys to play with.
The game begins with not just one, but two fairly effective bait-and-switches that quickly alert the player to the fact that not all is as it seems. These sequences are wonderfully played out, using many of the established tropes and effects of video games to good effect. These early parts of the game also pay homage to a couple of other classic titles – namely, Half-Life and System Shock. In fact, if space were limited, that would be the most effective capsule review right there, as Prey builds on a lot of the mechanics and systems of those earlier titles, along with a healthy smattering of
Prey is designed to be played in numerous ways, but simply gunning your way around is impossible
the kind of stealth and skill-based gameplay that Arkane has a become known for with its Dishonored series.
As Morgan Yu – whose memory is conveniently a blank slate at the game’s beginning, thanks to some voluntary neuro-trickery – you have to piece together the puzzle of just exactly what’s gone wrong on the station. The Typhon – shape-changing aliens of various power and sizes – are loose, nearly everyone’s dead, and there’s obviously some kind of plot afoot.
The game is arranged in a series of linked locations, connected by various hubs. Each one is large, open, and riddled with secrets and different ways to get around various impasses. You might use your GLOO gun to create an impromptu stairway to get from one point to another, or if you’ve invested your neuromods – Prey’s in-game equivalent of skill-points, which are collected around each level – in hacking, you might be able to bruteforce your way through locked doors without scrounging for passkeys. Similarly, if you’ve opted for points in
strength, you can lift – and even throw – heavy pieces of furniture to find hidden access paths.
Prey is very much an Arkane game, designed to be played in numerous ways, but – also a very Arkane move – simply gunning your way around is impossible. Without upgrades, base weapons aren’t all that powerful, and even with upgrades, ammunition is sparse. A crafting system is somewhat of a workaround, but this depends upon finding junk, then getting access to a converter to turn it all into raw materials, and then finding the plans to make those materials into something useful. Sure, you can make more weapon mods and ammo, but you’re probably better off crafting as many med-kits as you can carry. Every resource at your disposal – Psi to use certain neuromod powers, Health, even patch-kits to repair your armoured suit – is limited, so every decision you make in how to spend them will have a follow-on effect.
There are some truly unique things in Prey – the smaller, shapechanging aliens are easy to handle in singles, but in groups, and hiding in plain sight, they can be a real challenge – but by and large it makes its name in its level of polish. Level design is both aesthetically complex, to mirror the different stages of the space station’s construction, and intuitive, in terms of how things work and are laid out. Each weapon feels perfectly in balance with the game and its environments, and the overlapping systems of inventory management, crafting, funky gear, and growing neuromod powers makes for a diverse set of mechanics from which whole sections of drama and gameplay can emerge organically.
But at its heart, Prey is very much built on the shoulders of games that have come before it. It doesn’t have the same fresh feel, say, of Dishonored, and while it borrows heavily from System Shock and Half-Life, it never feels quite like it gets out from under their shadow, either.
Mind you, if you do have to build on the shoulders of giants, there are worse giants to build upon.