Through the looking glass

Prey’s world-shattering Truman Show opening

Do you ever suspect that you might be living in your very own Truman Show? That if you turned suddenly around at just the wrong moment, you’d catch a family member checking their script, or a camera operator zooming in on you stepping in that massive puddle? Congratulations, you may be suffering from delusions of grandeur. But also, we have the perfect game for you.

Prey opens with a surprisingly mundane scene: you’re Morgan Yu, waking up on a sunny morning, and getting ready for your first day of work. Aside from the beautiful view of San Francisco through the floor-to-ceiling windows, it’s a startlingly familiar scene for the opening of a sci-fi shooter.

Eventually, after a slightly strange work initiation ends in an alien attack, you black out… And wake up on a sunny morning, to a call reminding you this is your first day of work. Something’s clearly not right here.

After a little exploration, which rewards you with a wrench and the instruction “Get out, it’s not safe”, you take a step towards that beautiful view, smash the window – and reveal the world behind it. The sunny cityscape is replaced with a dark soundstage, where you can peer through every mirror and fish tank back into your old illusory life. Press a button to trigger a flock of pigeons on the screen you once thought was a window looking over the city. Press another for the sound of a helicopter flying by. It’s an incredibly surreal experience, equal parts spectacular and creepy.

Now, if you’ll excuse us, we’re pretty sure we just saw someone or something moving behind our bathroom mirror…