How fitting for a game about issues of identity to have borrowed the name belonging to a completely unrelated game. There's barely even a passing wink to 3D Realm's daft shooter. Ah well.
What Prey is instead is a modern successor to System Shock but with heaps of novel ideas layered atop a familiar centre. It's also not too dissimilar from Arkane's Dishonored, albeit without the stealth focus. Whilst I think I prefer Dishonored overall (I'm a big stealth fan) I think Prey has a chance at being considered the best immersive sim around. What Prey has over them all is coherence. The game is a network of related systems, all interactive, fleshing out a single location.
Talos IV in this case, a corporate owned space station orbiting the moon in an alternate reality where the Kennedy space program took off due to first contact with a strange alien species. The station is the real star of the show. It is a completely intricate location where every staff member is accounted for and every area has a logical contribution to the station's purpose. What a treat it is to not only be set loose on an intricate, dense location but one that fits together so completely. Whilst it never manages to be outright striking like the iconic Rapture, it still looks distinct; the decor offering a stylish retro themed alternative to the usual dull, gun metal grey corridors. And the score is a refreshingly stylish affair with the twang of an electric guitar cutting through the air instead of the bassy drone that seems the default for so much science fiction.
You play as Morgan Yu (who can be male or female depending on player choice), youngest child of the family owned Transtar corporation who run the station. Along with your eldest brother you're left stranded on the station, to deal with an alien menace. Worse, you've no memory of the last few months. Neuromods, the station's latest invention, allows anyone to acquire any recorded skill in seconds but it comes with a hefty price. Removing them resets the user's memory to just before they were installed. As a result you're left to pick up the pieces. Various characters will claim to be acting in your best interests but its up to you to pay attention if you want to decipher what's really going on and who to trust. There's a pleasant Philip. K. Dick vibe to it all, this oppressive paranoia dripping over everything. Even though it dulls over the game's many hours, it makes for an intriguing start.
Beyond this beginning, what occurs is largely up to you and the game will react accordingly to every action you take. No matter what you do, you can reach a conclusion. Save the other survivors, leave them or even kill them if you somehow decide that's a good idea. Chase down secrets, discover what was really going on aboard the station and in your own past. Talos IV is so open to exploration, with dozens of connecting routes through every area. It's the density of details that impressed me the most. Looking for a specific crew member? Check the ship's roster which gives a location (in real time) for every single employee. Found a locked room? Hit a touch screen with foam darts through a vent in the roof to unlock the door.
Those examples are just scratching the surface and the further into the game you go, the more systems are made available, allowing you to exert more control within the established rules of the game world. I won't spoil the later secrets because discovery is so much of what makes Prey a joy to play. Even if I tried however there's almost no way I could spoil someone's experience with the game. There are so many approaches and options you will almost certainly have a distinctly different experience from me.
Importantly, the game gives you plenty of reasons to try out these options. Part of that is narrative, with a moral element likely to factor into how you choose to approach a situation, chasing a particular outcome in the story. Other times its through design, with the game's admittedly steep difficulty pushing you towards finding alternative solutions or seeking new tools.
Enemies themselves are perhaps the least interesting area of the game. The much talked about mimics are, whilst somewhat tedious to actually fight, a neat idea. Able to imitate any object within the game world, you have to pay attention at all times to avoid ambushes. The novelty does wear off of course but by the time it does, the game offers you a device to identify them more easily, one of many instances where the game stays a step ahead of itself. The game's other foes feel relatively bog standard though. Phantoms are the main type and whilst they can have various properties that require unique counters, they're largely predictable. A few late game enemy types have their own twists, forcing you well outside your comfort zone but there's a long stretch of the game before they show up. All the enemies work well and they have that rare quality of feeling distinctly alien but few of them have much personality or leave a lasting impression.
What they all do pretty well is make you use the full extent of your arsenal. The devices you amass over its many hours are composed largely of "tools" with unique functions rather than dozens of guns. The GLOO gun for instance shoots a hardening foam which can be used to encase enemies, slowing them down, block doors or can even be used to create platforms to climb on. Then there's the abilities you unlock throughout, opening up an even greater array of approaches. Which does include, yes, the ability to turn into a coffee cup. Which has more uses than you might imagine.
The point is, the more you play the more creative you can be. A challenge you found daunting in the early hours or an obstacle that seemed impassable can be returned to, conquered with what you've acquired. It's the satisfaction of being given problems you can figure out your own solutions to that makes Prey feel so special. It puts its immersive sim competition like the new Deus Ex games to shame, with a depth and level of freedom that honestly felt a little dizzying at the start. I'm so used to endless waypoints, checkpoints and hand holding that absolute freedom can be overwhelming. It's also perfectly possible to overlook important information, fail to discover a helpful item or weapon. Nothing that will stop you being able to progress but can certainly make exploration all the more difficult.
It is exciting though and remains so as you see the effects of your choices throughout the game. Being one, interwoven location rather than broken up into distinct levels like Dishonored means your actions ripple through Talos IV much more organically. Events, both story-driven and player driven, develop nicely and lead to those “oh yeah...” moments as you bump into a result some hours down the line.
The story itself isn't the game's best feature. Your conflict with your brother is handled smartly, with their relationship fleshed out in the details rather than exposition but it does fail to deliver emotional punch, a real missed opportunity. A shame cause the game's characters are all pretty well written, with distinct, believable personalities from dozens of NPCs (with an admirable number of LGBT characters, including Female-Morgan). They even come with some great little sub-quests, offering some of the game's most emotionally satisfying moments. Prey uses e-mails and audio logs like a dozen games before it but sprinkles them carefully. Not to mention most only offer hints of important details, instead of a character having a monologue about their ideologies. You have to pay attention, read between the lines and that means I engaged with the information offered instead of passively absorbing exposition. With a deft hand and constant trickle of details the story and world managed to hold my attention.
All of which sadly leads to a predictable though fairly enjoyable climax (of the two major variations of conclusion, one is much more satisfying to play through than the other) but one followed by an utterly limp, rushed ending. Nothing that spoils the rest of the game but certainly a disappointment after all the world building and care given to make your choices up to that point feel meaningful. There is an after credits sequence that offers an audacious twist to events but it doesn't do much to salvage the ending.
Nonetheless, for almost its entire run time I found Prey an absolute delight. There's much that's derivative in it, System Shock remains the most obvious influence but Prey has more style and a far better interface than that game ever did. Mainly though, these are ideas we seldom see or see done this well, so what's borrowed never really felt like a negative.
What's more is for every familiar trope, there's a unique idea at work. Each could serve as the premise of a game all unto themselves. Instead they're here together, in this incredibly detailed sandbox. A flawed one admittedly but Prey still manages to be one of the most coherent and inventive games in years.
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