I think I decided to give Prey a 10 when I went into the captain’s office, and experienced two really cool things. One was a shuttle log, just left on the side as an optional thing to read. It notes how a shuttle travelling to Talos 1 found a completely dark installation in space, and they got such a bad vibe and ran away immediately. The other was in the same room, a choice given to the player. A shuttle had left Talos 1 just before the lockdown had been put into effect due to the Typhon outbreak. Do you let the shuttle travel back to Earth, potentially endangering the entire planet, or blow up the shuttle, potentially killing a
group of innocent people for no reason?
I just found these two little things so cool, the fear the first inspires, and the decision the second forces you to make. As soon as you discover the choice, the shuttle is already on its way, so you have to make a decision, just leaving the room is its own choice. It mirrors the dumb personality test you take at the start of the game, the kind of trolley problem rubbish that you assume you’ll never actually have to deal with. The shuttle log just feeds into the constant oppressive feeling that everything is more wrong than you can possibly comprehend, and adds an extra level of tension when you spacewalk outside the station;
what could be out there, totally dark but watching?
I just couldn’t believe both these things were in the same room. But all of Prey is so packed with all these kinds of interesting tidbits, I shouldn’t have been surprised. It’s as if when they were making The Outer Wilds, the publisher let them know that instead of being a weird indie game, it’s a big-budget AAA title so they needed to add guns and stuff, everything feels so purposeful.
I really didn’t expect this. Prey always came up as a bit of an underrated gem, but I played Dishonored, I thought I knew what kind of game this would be, your regular Arkane fare. But all I can think now is, why the fuck were they making Deathloop instead of another Prey? WHY WERE THEY MAKING REDFALL INSTEAD OF ANOTHER PREY? Microsoft needs to tell them sorry, but you don’t get to make games where you go around killing targets anymore, you have to make Prey 2, and 3, for all time. Guns? Don’t you have some in-game emails to write? 5 different ways to kill a target? How about coming up with a whole space station of people with names and personalities and relationships?
Don’t know what else to say really, absolutely insane this hasn’t really been copied, didn’t even think Arkane was the kind of developer to have it in them to make a masterpiece. Other developers need to sort themselves out if they aren’t putting this much effort into their games. Joke ting.
