My girlfriend asked me why I carry a gun around the house, what it was that scared me. I looked her straight in the eyes and said, “Motherfucking Mimics”. She laughed, I laughed, the chair laughed. I shot the chair, we had a good day.
Now, that joke may not be new, but it’s one that fits Prey very well. The game feels like the love child of titles like System Shock, Bioshock, Deus Ex and Dishonored, combining innovative gameplay mechanics with excellent level design that encourage the player to look for creative ways to find their way around. Also, it teaches you not trust anything in your surroundings. Not even a coffee mug.
You play as Morgan Yu (either male or female), a scientist who’s trapped aboard the Talos I space station. The year is 2032 and the space station has been taken over by alien beings known known as the Tyhpon. The game begins with an experiment going wrong, and you wake up having no memory whatsoever. From the very beginning, there is a sense paranoia and anxiety, and the game makes you question everything you come across. Sadly, the overall story, even though quite interesting, does not amount to a whole lot and feels like a let down to the rest of the game.
Prey has an impressive environment, where story of the space station’s demise is told through the different elements scattered around you. The setting in itself is fascinating; an alternate history where the space station has high-tech equipment like touch screen computers and old school rotating dial telephones existing in harmony. You can go through e-mails and find out what was going on. However, a majority of these are simple as, “we were here conducting an experiment, things went south and aliens killed everyone.”
One thing that Arkane does well is weaving intricate and creative puzzles into the story, providing the player with multiple ways to approach an objective. And this is perhaps the best thing about Prey. Closed or locked doors are not obstacles, but a horde of opportunities. It can be something as simple as finding a keycard, or as complex as crafting a crossbow to shoot a foam dart through a window at a computer’s touchscreen to get it to open the door, or as crazy as using the GLOO cannon to shoot chunks of hard lumps at walls that you can climb, or as fun as turning yourself into a shoe or a cup to get through a small opening. Each is extremely satisfying in its own way, and feels completely natural in the game’s systems-driven environment.
The game presents character progression in the form of Tech trees and Neuromod upgrades, which come in extremely handy. Neuromods are the devices that were being researched on Talos I, aimed to make humans faster, smarter and stronger. Like the abovementioned Mimics, they allow you to morph into everyday objects. But be cautious, too much investment in the Tyhpon skills and the very turrets that provide a defense against stronger enemies in the beginning will identify you as a threat and turn on you. This encourages the player to create a balance between different skills, which can prove to be quite fun and challenging.
You can also recycle equipment for materials using the Recycler, and then use the Fabricator to then turn the junk into useful items. These can save your life time and again, as resources and ammunition are scarce and hard to find on the space station. The lack of ammunition also means that the player is encouraged to sneak around, which can be both rewarding and infuriating. Especially when you have a swarm of enemies roaming around an objective. The situation is worsened a little by the combat, which feels a little clunky or sluggish. It’s rather disappointing, considering that Arkane has created incredible and interesting enemies in the form of Typhon.
While the main storyline deals with Talos I and the aliens, and feels a little lackluster, the side missions are where you discover yourself (as Morgan, of course). And trust me, if you skip the side story and focus just on the main objective, you are going to miss out on a lot of the good stuff. The side quests present you with difficult choices which help you determine a moral standing for Morgan, and play a vital role towards the ending. The game does an excellent job of establishing a sense of desperation and mystery, which is complemented quite well by the music.
Prey’s gameplay is innovative and rewarding, but combined with the combat and not-so interesting questlines make the game unevenly paced. You do stumble across some intriguing stories, but these are few and far apart. The game also suffers from some technical issues, including long load times. This wouldn’t be a huge issue, if Talos I wasn’t a huge space station which requires you to go from one area to another all the time. There’s also a considerable amount of backtracking involved, especially when you need to hop back and forth to recycle junk and craft med packs and useful items. Thanks to the load times, this can culminate into quite an annoying experience. People have reported issues with the auto-save as well, though I was fortunate enough not to run into any of those during my playthrough.
The Verdict
Prey takes inspiration from all the right places, and does a great job at combining them to create a great, fuck-with-your-mind experience. The intricate and creative puzzle-solving gameplay is by no means easy, but still extremely enjoyable and encourages you to explore and play as you want to (for the most part). But it has its issues. At times when combat becomes unavoidable is when the game’s weaknesses peek through the gaps. There’s plenty to suck the player into the world of Talos I, especially if you’re a fan of games like System Shock or Dishonored, but there’s a layer of inconsistent pacing and story over it that’s not easy to ignore.
