Prey

Well it only took eleven years, but there's another Prey game. This one is called... Prey- look, I could go on about dumb names for things all day, it doesn't really matter anymore. This is a game that's less concerned with continuing the story or 'legacy' of the previous game, and more about defining what the Prey series is going forward, if it is to be a series. And I hope it does continue, Bethesda and developer Arkane Studios have created something that's really quite great. A combination of neat new ideas and a refinement of existing ones gives way to a package that's actually a whole let deeper than I would have ever thought.

The sources of inspiration are obvious here. There's a whole lot of BioShock (and System Shock) found in the exploration of a fallen community, there's a healthy amount of Dishonored (another Arkane joint) in the amount of options, powers, and abilities at your disposal, and hint of Dead Space in some aspects of it's setting and enemies. While this may seem like a crowded field, Prey doesn't get overshadowed by the gameplay tropes of these more established names, arguably doing some things better than it's predecessors. And while it's primary story may not be king here next to it's more secondary and environmental story telling and gameplay, the core narrative is still compelling enough to always push you forward, even if they idea of memory loss being introduced within the first hour was an enormous tip off to it's "THINGS MAY NOT BE AS THEY SEEM" ideas later.

Playing as Morgan Yu (male or female, it's up to you), you explore the now basically empty Talos I space station in the year 2035, a research facility secretly investigating a form of alien life - called the Typhon - that was found on the station decades ago. One thing I can be a complete sucker for is a good alternate history yarn, and Prey revels in it's own fiction, starting with former president JFK surviving the attempt on his life in 1963 and moving forward from there into a heavily worked over secret collaboration with the Soviet Union after alien life was discovered and then hidden. Because of this conceit, the visual design of the station is allowed to be many different things, representing the different ages the station has lived through ranging from the Art Deco and retro futurism of the mid 20th century America to the more stark and serious look of the Soviet Bloc.

Morgan is tasked to make their way through the Typhon infested station to find their brother Alex, who has the answers to what has gone on here, as well as the means to destroy the station and all the Typhon on it, whether he likes it or not. While Morgan proper is a silent protagonist (a choice I almost never like), he or she does have a robotic helper named January who speaks with their voice, and effectively talks for you. For the most part this works, as the detached nature of your character lends itself well to the authority figure you were to the other TranStar employees (the corporation that has grown wealthy through the neuroscience breakthroughs made from studying the Typhon), but the occasional character that was reportedly very close with Morgan have very awkward interaction with this person they are ostensibly familiar with despite his or her silence.

In fact, as I mentioned earlier, the secondary stories found in the environment are easily the best part of Prey. There's a group of people who were playing a Dungeons & Dragons knock-off that you keep finding evidence of, an imposter on board the station for unknown reasons, a surprisingly touching and heartbreaking romance told only through audio logs and crumpled up notes and letters, and so on. Plenty of things feature this form of story telling - the aforementioned BioShock, Dead Space, and Dishonored, basically everything I already brought up - so the bar was set pretty high, and I think Prey has wildly succeeded in that department. The writing is strong and carries some weight with it when things don't go well - or do - for the characters whose lives you're following, and any investment at all in people you may never actually meet or even see is always a victory in a visual medium like this.

Exploring around Talos I wouldn't be possible without a wide range of skills and powers, and that's where the comparison to Dishonored comes in, the game even has the same "you can do this multiple ways" prompt early on. Split into two sections - Human and Typhon - with multiple trees therein, there exist dozens of different ways to spec your character and deal with situations. Despite the nature of my surroundings, I found myself skewing towards the less alien abilities (like increased weight capacity and lifting, and hacking) as they tended to be less aggressive and combat focused. Unfortunately, the enemy designs themselves stop being inventive and unique about halfway through the game, and you mostly just fight the same kinds of enemies from that point forward. As well, the more you dip into the Typhon abilities (like a concussive wave attack, and creating enemy doubles of yourself) which are researched by scanning enemies, the more your body will register as Typhon to security turrets and other things scanning for Typhon material, further making your trek challenging. One non-powered way to get through the game - and it is possible to complete the game without using powers - is the GLOO Cannon, a weapon that creates a fast-hardening adhesive that can be used to keep enemies from moving as well as to make steps and bridges for increased traversal. The best moments of the game for me came in moments where I was light on resources (which can be condensed down to raw materials and used to fabricate new stuff at stations throughout Talos I) and was forced to be creative and inventive and really discover what was around me to be used to defend or protect myself.

Also, you might be spending more time in and around Talos I then you think, as there is a shocking amount of stuff to do. While there were only ever one or two main story missions active at once, there were times where I had more than ten side missions going just from exploring around and opening up new story threads. These often required you to move around a lot through the open world-ish station, and that's where maybe the most annoying aspect of Prey would make itself evident: load times. Going from one area to the next during the critical path was one thing, but when you have to move from section to section in quick succession, the 20-30 second long load screens would really start to add up. This was on a regular PS4, mind you, those load times would hopefully be better on a Pro, but they were still a hassle in the latter parts of the game. Another complaint I have to mention is the last chunk of the game itself, which becomes very action heavy, and throws a lot more enemies at you very suddenly. This may not be a problem if you had been building a combat heavy character, but I hadn't needed to in the preceding 90% of the game as there had always been more obvious ways out of fighting.

Prey is a combination of many things that it all does very well. There is a light horror touch to it that sometimes shines through to be frightening while mostly staying in the background. There's a fascinating alternate history space station to explore and inspect, with wonderful stories to experience. There's deep combat with options for everyone. And in the best way, that combat feels in service to those quieter moments of exploration and discovery, a fitting theme for a game set on a space station discovering the mysteries of the cosmos. Throw in a wicked original score and a thought-provoking mystery of a core narrative and you have a great way to spend the ten or so hours it takes to complete. However, if you're like me, you'll probably spend about double that just wandering around and trying to solve problems for the few people still left, and to provide closure for the ones that didn't make it. Hopefully this is a template for the Prey name in the future. Not that I necessarily want to go back to Talos I - which may not even be there depending on which of the multiple endings you get - but another game with these sensibilities and quality is always appreciated.