What would have happened if JFK had never been assassinated? He would have supported a cooperative space station launch with Russia called Talos 1 to help research a mysterious alien threat and discover wild new sciences, of course! The year is 2035 (maybe 2036?) and humans can install neuromods directly into their brains. These mods take the brain patterns of people with immense skill, copy them, then allow almost anyone to install them, instantly learning new skills. Want to learn how to play Beethoven flawlessly without having to practice? Want to become an Olympian? Eat more hotdogs than Joey Chestnut? Well, stick this needle in your eye! But what happens if you need your neuromod removed? What happens when the company that gave them to you as a perk rescinds their offer when you find new employment? An apto-regressive neurotomy will take care of that, and with the removal of your neuromod, so too go all the memories you’ve made since installation.
The question is, what happens when you become stuck in a loop of living the same day repeatedly because someone continues to remove your neuromods day in and day out after some experiments? Is it okay to continue because the old you with all the mods consented, or does the current you have the right to object? Even better, what if a neuromod-installed version of yourself made a backup of your personality to tell you what might happen, to free you from a potential prison if the alien threat breaks free? What if multiple backups show up, and they have contradicting missions? Which older version of yourself do you trust? What if other people around you are making more sense than the older version of you is? What then? Whose plans do you follow? What path do you take? This is the dilemma in
Prey.
Let’s cut to the chase here.
Prey is
Bioshock meets
Dead Space. The gameplay has elements of both. The zero-g moments are heavily inspired by
Dead Space, and the first-person gameplay with abilities feels exactly like
Bioshock. In one hand, a power; in the other, a weapon; with a wheel to select everything from. Though I must admit, the more powers and weapons you unlock, the more unwieldy the weapon wheel becomes. Best to keep it simple and only focus on a few things per playthrough. The game is nine years old now, but it feels like it could have launched when
Bioshock did (which is twenty years ago, yikes!). In a year when
Overwatch and
Uncharted came out with smooth, action-packed gunplay,
Prey’s gameplay was dated on release. That’s not to say it does not play well. It just feels a bit clunky. Things feel heavier than they need to, and considering the speed of some enemies, the fights can become frustrating. The mix of different abilities and weapons creates fun combinations, however, and situational combat can become intense; just don’t expect the game to be as smooth as
Apex Legends.
The Talos 1 space station is a massive man-made triumph will many different people aboard. Throughout the station, you’ll find many transcribes (voice recordings) of the old crew. From relationships to work orders to competitive machismo, the story of Talos 1 is in huge part brought to life by the people that once lived there (and some still do). With the typhon threat (alien lifeform) roaming free, most crew are dead and only live on through the transcribes. One of my favorite things that
Prey does well is environmental storytelling. Bloodstains leading to the rafters, things left behind in a rush, and an old
D&D campaign established by the old crew. Nice touches like these make the massive space station feel like a place people were inhabiting before all the insanity went down.
The music accompanies the semi-horror sci-fi vibe of the game, adapting to the moment. The horror level of the typhon sits between
Bioshock and
Dead Space in fright factor, not feeling like a full-on horror game, but definitely giving a few jump scares throughout its twenty-plus-hour playtime. While I do wish there was more enemy variety (most of the enemies are just different versions of phantoms; even the largest enemy looks like a massive version of a phantom), the mix of mimics and other enemies creates some intense fights. The game created a successful air of making me second-guess myself, as mimics can take on the appearance of other objects. Sometimes I would see something out of the corner of my eye, only to find that a mimic had taken over a coffee cup. It’s a fun, creepy addition that never wears out it welcome.
Exploration on Talos 1 is a good time, except for the loading screens. They are not too much of a problem until the endgame, when you have to do multiple things in multiple areas of the ship in quick succession. Otherwise, the space is massive, and there are a bunch of different things to discover and multiple ways in which to do most of them. Considering I played this game multiple times in a row, I found it fun to unlock rooms I hadn’t in my first playthrough. Having different skills gives you access to different rooms, or ways to get into an area that you couldn’t before. I always love a maxed-out hacking/lock-picking skill. No door is ever safe from me.
The game looks decent still after nine years, though I have to say the character models are hideous. I think that it’s just Arkane’s style, but I don’t think the models are pleasant to look at, especially when it contrasts with the detail of everything else around them. That said, the enemy models that are there look good, as do the guns and the environment. There is a cohesive feel to it all that makes stepping out of the Neuromod Division for the first time a pleasant delight.
gives you choices. Not presented in front of you like the little sisters in
Bioshock, but in a more natural way. Do you save every human you discover or do you kill them? Do you kill any of them, even if they harmed you? You are fighting off an alien threat after all, and every living human is an asset. Right? But also, as you progress, you can scan typhon enemy types and learn what they can do. You can then install their abilities into your character. Do you remain fully human? Do you install only a few typhon neuromods? Or do you let the typhon take you over and install everything you can? Making these choices has an effect on the multiple endings you can select from, and it makes for stronger roleplay when going back through the game.
As the credits rolled for the first time, I decided to immediately get back into the game. I wanted to test all the powers I hadn’t before, as well as see the other endings. The game definitely feels like
Bioshock meets
Dead Space, as I’ve mentioned; it’s not as memorable as either, but that’s always the case with those that come after. That doesn’t mean it isn’t a good time. If you like
Bioshock, if you like
Dead Space, if you like an interesting sci-fi story wrapped up in a multi-billion-dollar family drama, then taking a chance with
Prey can do you no wrong. Don’t expect the heights of its inspirations, and you won’t be let down, but you’ll find yourself wondering why you didn’t check out this underrated gem when it came out nine years ago.
