Prey (2017 Video Game)
Ted Hentschke
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Developed by Arkane Studios
Published by Bethesda Softworks
Available on PC, PS4, and Xbox One
Rated M for Mature
You know, I think somewhere out there in the annals of the GameStop preorder listings, I still have $5 on “Prey 2.” The ill-fated bounty hunter space simulator would never see the light of day, falling into development hell when the IP was transferred from 3D Realms to Bethesda Softworks. I was at the Bethesda conference where the newly revived Prey was first announced, and in all honesty the reaction in the room was equal parts excitement, shock, and confusion. The original was a stellar throwback to the 80’s, with a spirit walking Native American protagonist blasting aliens with bombastic weapons and a creative take on the laws of space and gravity. The 2017 Prey looked… really serious. The trailer was all about strange shifting goo monsters and needles in the eye. Gosh, it’s almost like they took the name alone and none of the concepts from the original.
By Arkane’s own admission, that’s actually what happened with Prey. Aside from the name, the only commonality is that you play as an ethnic minority (Asian this time) and that there are in fact aliens attempting to prey on you. But I guess calling it Prey is less messy than what they really want to call it, System Shock 3. Although I hesitate to even call it that. System Shock 2 was a wonderfully diverse and inventive game, worthy of the decades of homages that have followed. While Prey follows the theme of diverse objectives, creative problem solving, and nonlinear exploration, it possesses a unique feel and flow to combat that makes it in a category all its own.
I guess they also have the gravity bending thing in common, but this time it’s actual space navigation instead of just wacky warp pads.
This is going to be a spoiler review starting now, as it’s just too hard to get into the meat of the game without revealing major plot points. You play as Morgan Yu, one of the top scientists and heads of the TranStar corporation aboard the Talos 1 space station. You quickly find out that you are dual researcher and guinea pig, stuck in a repeated loop of memory loss. As you’re completing another one of your daily cycles, a containment breach of deadly aliens known as the Typhon forces you out of your cozy little loop and into a fight for survival. From there, you are a Gordon Freeman style blank slate silent badass, shotgunning and wrenching your way through alien hordes in an attempt to save mankind.
Like any good scientist, I can fix this alien infestation with industrial equipment.
Now it all sounds kind of basic, but what makes Prey is the characters that steer the morality straight into a deep and dark grey area. There are no real “good” or “bad” guys, no clear answer as to what is right and wrong. The various characters all have compelling reasons why they think they are right, further complicated by the previous “you” weighing in at various stages of his memory loss. You soon meet January, a mechanical Operator programmed by you for the sole purpose of instructing you to destroy the whole space station. This will kill you and every person aboard, all in service of saving Earth from a Typhon infection. This is your starting point.
It’s a bold and dark way to launch a grand journey. Generally, you’ll start a game with a more hopeful objective like, “defeat the dragon lord and become the goodly king Fantasystan.” Only after you discover the Dark Acolytes or something do you get the, “just kill everyone and start over” quest. But in Prey, you start with that as the end goal. From there, you learn things that will make you question the nature of that mission. Are there people worth saving? More than that, is this station worth saving? And what about the threat to the rest of the world?
Except for this guy. Definitely not worth saving.
It’s a great way to tell a story, and I appreciate the narrative creativity of how it presents the questions. Unfortunately, it at times boils down to the same kind of “right” and “wrong” dichotomy that we come to expect from games. Helping people is good, turning them into biomatter to upgrade your psychic powers is bad. I mean don’t get me wrong, I’m not in favor of turning people into goo to make my brain lasers just that much more powerful under normal circumstances. But if my plan is to just nuke the station to save the world, isn’t it actually right to give myself that extra edge over the chittering alien hordes? I’m not advocating using babies as munitions. But if it’s me, a dozen babies, and the Lord of Death on a rocket hurtling towards earth, you better bet that I’m loading up my toddler cannon with a full clip.
I was also surprised that a few of Prey’s moral questions didn’t make more of an impact. One of the cooler ones came from the Typhon Neuromods. Now let me take a step back and explain the Neuromods. Rather than gain experience, you advance Morgan’s capabilities by installing Neuromods. For simplicity’s sake, these are skill points that you collect instead of leveling up for. The basic forms of these increase your health, weapon skills, armor, and other “human” stuff. A few hours in, you’ll unlock what amounts to the “magic” trees. These skills range from transforming into objects to lighting things on fire with your mind. These psychic powers are incredibly powerful, and augment your arsenal in devastating ways.
Can… can I just level up instead please?
Now obviously, blowing things up with psychic powers is hella cool. You’re warned however when you first discover them that these alien mods are dangerous. Not only will the system’s defenses recognize you as a threat and attack, but you run the risk of losing your humanity. So I went through the whole game without installing any of them, expecting some massive alteration to the ending. Aside from a single line praising me for my restraint, my abstinence didn’t do jack shit. Now I’m not one of those assholes expecting every minor decision to massively alter my ending, but come on. You give me a big warning that putting the alien shit in my brain has major consequences, but in the end it all ends the same anyways?
Now I wouldn’t be so salty if the game wasn’t severely lacking without the psychic powers. I was able to beat Prey without any of the cool mind explosions, but the combat leaves much to be desired. There are only 7 weapons in Prey (not counting four different kinds of grenades), only four of which deal damage. You have your wrench, a pistol, a shotgun, and a green laser that makes enemies explode when exposed long enough. You then also have an immobilizing goo gun that also creates platforms, a charging stun gun, and a toy crossbow that you use to push buttons from a distance. So ignoring the nerf gun, you really only have six weapons. Now the shotgun gets the job done, but I got really tired of using it. There’s a lot of staples missing, like some kind of assault rifle, rocket launcher, or sniper rifle. I’m not saying that every game has to follow a set arsenal, and I actually appreciate that Prey did things differently. While I applaud the uniqueness, it didn’t make up for how constrained my combat options felt.
Maybe I’m expecting too much from life, but I can only electro-zap into shotgun decapitate an alien so many times before I get bored.
I’ve heard some people complain that Prey doesn’t feel really “scary” because of the bright color palate, but that’s dumb. I’m glad for once to have a horror game that I can actually see what’s going on. The basic mimics are pretty weak, but the constant threat that any cup or chair might try to shove tentacles up your nose keeps things tense. Enemies also deal a significant amount of damage, with even the basic dudes taking you down in just a couple psychic blasts. You can get beefy enough through Neuromods to even the odds, but given my love for all things completion I invested much of my early game points into all the various “unlocking” skills. So for about 70% of the game, every encounter was a mad dash to dish out as much damage as I could before the alien electroballs turned me into a lump of squirming flesh. It’s tense, and the constantly constrained inventory and scarce ammo does ramps the engagements up to a constantly pitched fight for survival.
“Not scary”
Still, the combat limitations and general weirdness of it might turn most gamers off. I’m not about to be so insipid as to suggest that most gamers would prefer space CoD, but even I felt the hurt. It’s interesting to have to swap between a stun gun, distraction grenade, and good ol’ shotgun to take down an enemy, but when that’s every fight it gets tedious. I would have liked more variety in enemies, as even the hardest ones can be dispatched quickly when you learn their weaknesses.
If you’re a fan of open games with a hefty amount of exploration and side content, then Prey is a genuinely unique experience that should not be missed. It’s far from perfect, and for most people I’d recommend Arkane’s other game Dishonored 2 over it. But there’s something charming about Prey that will set it in my heart in a category all its own. To put it in an example, there was a point where I was supposed to fight through a bunch of enemies to get to a console and turn on some elevators in a shuttle bay. I had about a 3000 rounds for my goo gun at this point, and decided to just make my own platforms up instead of turning on the elevator. Turns out, this was a totally viable option. This is the kind of lateral thinking that Prey not only anticipates, but rewards. So if you just want to shoot aliens in space, Prey is too obtuse to deliver. If you like turning into a cup so that you can roll through a vent for a secret pathway, then welcome to Talos 1, Morgan.
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Categorized:Horror Gaming Reviews
