Prey

underrated masterpiece.

Prey is a criminally underrated crossing of System Shock 2, Thief, Deus Ex, Bioshock and Alien: Isolation

Prey is.... Different.
It is an underrated game full of surprises who manages to stand out among all the other triple a titles.
I won't spoil much, just know that it's a game worth trying out.

Overview
Believe it or not, my biggest criticism of Prey is the title. Bethesda’s marketing and them forcing the Prey title is what I believe led this game to be unfairly underrated. A better name for this game is instead “Neuroshock,” as it shares a great deal of similarities with the other “shock” games (Bioshock, System Shock) and could be considered a spiritual successor. Prey is an immersive sim, and it is the most expertly crafted game I have played of its genre. This is a game that respects you as a player, as a person who can make their own choices, and allows you a degree of freedom seldom seen in other linear video games. Prey is a great game that I can definitely recommend even at full price.
Highlights
Good variety of nifty gadgets and powerful powers
Great level design
Interesting story with a few twists
Many, many possible ways to achieve your goal
Downsides
Game lacks an original title
Slow pace may not be for everyone
Gunplay is meh
Average graphics especially for a Cryengine game
Gameplay
Prey is an inventive and exciting experience, but is slower paced than you might expect. This is a game that rewards thorough exploration, and thinking before tackling obstacles. There’s always multiple solutions to every problem, and it’s up to you to choose how you want to deal with things. Combat is great thanks to this freedom. You can have a fridge-throwing build, a John Wick slo-mo gun build, a necromancy build, a fire/electricity wizard build or you could just turn yourself into a banana. This game lets you play in so many unique and interesting ways that it takes a few playthroughs to be able to experiment with every power. The fact that the story and mission objectives allow choices which result in different outcomes makes Prey have good replay value. I’ve personally beat the game 5 times, and each time was a unique experience.
Traversing around space station Talos 1 is great fun thanks to the wonderful level design. The majority of my time was spent exploring every nook and cranny, as this was rewarding and fun. There are many difficult to reach areas which you can get to in different ways. Most commonly I would use the Gloo gun because it’s such a cool and useful weapon. Your Gloo gun can shoot globs of glue that hardens on contact with a surface, allowing you to shoot your own makeshift stairs into existence, or to temporarily immobilize an enemy. Enemies are quite frequent, and combat encounters can be really nasty if you’re not prepared. Simply whacking enemies with your trusty wrench won’t work all the time as some enemies burn or zap you when you get too close. Stealth is a viable option, and this is supported by Arkane’s stellar level design. If you’ve Played Dishonored 1 or 2 then you know what to expect here. Since I explore so much and thus accumulate so much loot and ammo, I always made an effort to engage in any potential combat encounter. Killing enemies means more loot, so it’s hard to resist. The combat is not particularly great though, with subpar gunplay and some annoying bullet-sponge enemies. This is mostly alleviated by neuromods, which are essentially skill points you can use to upgrade yourself in standard ways such as more health, or unlock superpowers. Like the Dishonored games, the superpowers are both really cool and extremely useful.
Different enemies have different weaknesses which you can learn by scanning them with your psychoscope (you invented it, by the way). I like the fact that most weaknesses can be exploited using either a superpower or a gadget. For example, if an enemy is weak to nullify then you can either use the nullwave gadget or the psychoshock power, and if an enemy is weak to electric then you can use either an EMP gadget or the electrostatic burst power. These multiple options are great and especially so if you want to try a zero neuromod playthrough. This game is just filled with options; if there’s a room with a switch you need to press, you can: Hack open the door to get to the switch, search around for a keycode for the door, use brute strength to tear the door open, remotely activate the switch by shooting a toy dart gun through the window, remotely activate the switch with telekinesis, use telekinesis to hack into a computer to open the door, or morph into a banana to fit through the window. Or maybe there’s a hole in the ceiling to drop down into the room with the switch, so then you could either use upgraded mobility to jump up, use the gloo gun to make a way up, or pile lots of objects to make a stairway up. This abundance of choice is stunning and is what makes Prey such an awesome game.
Story
I found the lore explanation of neuromods to be extremely interesting and even grounded in reality, well mostly. It’s not exactly realistic that editing the neural pathways in the brain can allow you to effortlessly toss refrigerators across a room, but the general idea still makes sense. The prologue is great, and is probably the best prologue I’ve experienced in a game, and one of the coolest moments in gaming period. Unfortunately the only other time the story is this epic is at the very end of the game, so I think more could’ve been done with the “looking glass” concept for more wow moments.
Visuals
The visuals can be impressive at times, most notably in the arboretum level, but oftentimes they are quite noticeably lacking. The chopper flyover scene is particularly egregious in terms of graphics, looking like a game that was made 10 years before it was released. Most of the time the graphics aren’t bad, and at least the lighting is good. The visual style is kind of similar to Dishonored, a kind of painterly look with simple and low resolution textures, but in Prey I can’t tell if this is due to low quality or deliberate style.
Audio
Prey has a great original soundtrack by famed video-game musician Mick Gordon. The Mindgame song, the synthwave music in the helicopter, and the song at the Yellow Tulip are particularly good and I even listen to those 3 songs on Youtube sometimes. I did find the combat music to be a little annoying after a while, and the Typhon sound design wasn’t unique or alien enough.
Functionality
While not too buggy, this is a game you’ll be thankful for the inclusion of quick saving/loading hotkeys. I had a poltergeist lift me up into the ceiling once, and I had to reload to my last save and luckily losing only a few seconds of progress. The performance is a bit low, averaging around 60-70FPS while sometimes dropping below 60 during intense moments, and this was on medium settings. (Specs: GTX1070, i5-6500, 16GB RAM, 3440x1440p)
Conclusion
Prey is an absolute must-have for fans of immersive sims and/or the Shock games. The abundance of choice and freedom in the gameplay makes Prey highly enjoyable even for multiple playthroughs. I can thus recommend this game even at full price.
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Great immersive sim. If you like Deus Ex, Dishonored, Bioshock, etc. get this game, play it, play the DLC, and then spread the word, since Prey never got enough credit for how god damn good it is.

They are weak, bothersome, without brains. But you. You will be worse. Scan and slam, until it is done.
Too Long; Didn't Read: Prey is an immersive, slow paced, adventure game that not only creates tension through its horror-inspired enemies and its dark hallways, but also thanks to its morbid technologies and concepts.
It rewards exploration and attention to detail, and the world itself is probably one of the best and most realised in gaming. Its puzzlelike approach to combat may alienate some, but understanding it comes as part of the well-balanced progression.
I recommend Prey immensely, it earns its place as one of the best 0451 games out there, on the same level as Bioshock and System Shock 2.
The Gameplay
Combat: Prey does not play like a typical shooter. The game does not reward those who run and gun every environment, but instead those who take their time and methodically plan out their attack. This is why at first Prey can seem a little too hard with enemies eating away at you while you can only throw 3 swings of a wrench before you are out of breath.
The wrench can be swung 4 times at most before your character runs out of stamina. But charging your strike uses the same amount of stamina but does triple the amount of damage than normal. So, the correct tactic to use it would be to sneak up on an enemy with you ready to strike with the wrench. And this is just one example of how Prey has designed its combat around patience and tactic.
The Gloo Canon is another great example. When fired at an enemy it deals no damage, but it freezes them in place for a short period of time. This then allows you to charge up a wrench swing. This means before engaging in a fight it is a good idea to make sure you have or can immobilize them with this weapon. Since the Gloo Canon can create blobs that are physical, you can create access to higher ground, or create obstructions.
Exploration: Ammunition, health packs, etc, all of these items are exceedingly rare and crafting them requires a lot of recourses. This means even if you do not like exploring much in these games, it is in your interest. Exploration can be one of the most rewarding and useful things to do.
Sometimes a room or objective you need to reach will have a locked door that requires a key code, and you have not invested in the hacking skill. This means you must look around the room. Maybe above the door is a service hatch, that if you use the Gloo Canon to create a staircase to, will allow you access. Maybe entering a room, you ignored earlier will provide you with the code. If the door has a window next to it, you could smash it and if you see a computer, use the nerf gun rip off to open the door remotely. There are many ways to get around the station, and no area will truly be off limits, thanks to the ingenious level design.
Exploring outside the space station is also fantastic. It can be done very early on, and is used to access areas that were damaged, as well as reach far off points of interest like a floating billboard or a space shuttle drifting off in the distance. Access to the main locations of Prey can also be done from space but they are locked from the inside. This means space is more of a convenience to back track to areas you’ve already explored without having to go through the entire building.
The Player: Prey’s skill tree is body modifications, similar to Bioshock or Deus Ex. These can be used for combat, such as more damage with security weapons like shotguns and pistols, or more health. Some body mods help exploring the space station, such as more stamina to run, jump and hit with, or more strength to move obstructions out of the way. And some help improve your experience, like hacking to pacify robots or access locked off areas early, or repair to fix damaged electrical systems or ruined sentry guns.
One of the more interesting parts of this system however, is the ability to copy enemy abilities. Take the mimic for example, the basic enemy that hides itself as objects like coffee cups, health kits and office chairs. Bring one out of hiding, splatter it in glue to immobilize it, and you can scan it to understand it’s behaviour, but you can also unlock modifications to copy this ability, and then you can disguise yourself as objects as well. This works for all enemies, and certain allies, on the space station.
However, every time you unlock one of these alien abilities, you become more alien yourself. Only invest in alien powers, or have too many of them to counteract your human abilities, and soon the space station will perceive you as an alien threat, and then the security turrets and operators you considered allies will become hostile. This means not only do you have to think about which abilities you need more than others, but also how many you should unlock before you need to stop or counteract them, an odd game of balance.
The Story
Prey’s story is very complex and intricate, with lots to discover and many twists and turns. It is best experienced than told, but to give slight context you play as Morgan Yu, the sibling of Alex Yu who is in charge of Talos 1, the space station and research base you explore in Prey. It specialises primarily in producing Neuromods, which is human knowledge and experiences that you can inject into yourself to gain abilities. However when removed, these Neuromods reset your brain to the moment you installed them, meaning all the time you spent using them is forgotten. This is the explanation of how you have ended up on Talos 1, Neuromodless, confused, and now fighting for your life in an overrun space station.
Graphics & Soundtrack
This game is very beautiful, with plenty of jaw dropping spectacles and surreal locations. Floating around space is made so special by how vivid everything is, the tall and proud exterior of Talos 1, the floating bodies seemingly frozen in their last moments, the isolation you feel as you float alone, in between the Earth and the Moon.
The inside has a glamorous art deco theme for residential areas, and clean laboratories for workers. The closer you are to the top of this space station, the more natural areas you find like a garden, the crew quarters, and the kitchens. The bottom of the station is where the more dark and intimidating locations can be found, like the engine room, the central computing, the labs. This gives the station nice variety and makes areas you have explored distinct and memorable.
The synth wave soundtrack is brilliant, it really suits the games sci fi theme, as well as helps set the mood or raise the tension. The intense and fast tracks really helped make gun fights feel dramatic. But I found the best moments for the soundtrack was when it was slow and quiet, and I was slowly walking through a room I had just cleared, reading emails of these people who had died, picking up items, accompanied by a low synth tone.
Final Score & Comments
I would give Prey a 9/10. It so brilliantly balances RPG mechanics with action game design and exploration that has not been this satisfying since Bioshock 2. Its story remains mostly strong throughout the game, and never failed to make me question what I, or the major characters, had been doing, and if we were justified in our actions. It has good replay value, and plenty of side game content. I can’t see many reasons not to at least give this game a go.
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This game is pretty spectacular. If you like the Bioshock games, I think this is probably a pretty easy sell for you. It's an "immersive sim" type game, meaning there's usually more than a few solutions to each problem, some more or less conventional than others, and the first keypad code is 0451 or whatever, right?
The story is pretty good, but the setting and the environments and the set pieces and the implications are all fantastic. Gameplay is solid, again, plenty of tools to make plenty of decisions about each little problem you're set up against, and the mechanics work well enough on their own as well, which is kind of shown through the Mooncrash DLC which........... should be free to be honest, or if not free, absofuckinglutely NOT $20, wow. (It's a roguelike gamemode, it's pretty good too.)
Anyways. The story will keep you to the end, and areas will change and evolve based on your progression. There's plenty of interesting side characters and events and such, some good secrets here and there, the graphics are great. Enemy design is interesting, the mimics obviously being a common and most unique out of the bunch, but there are these big nightmare creatures that will hunt you and they're very cool, actually making you hide and change tactics from your usual.
The intro to the game is VERY good, very very good, and it should keep you hooked til the end.
If you like FPS RPGs/Immersive Sims etc like Deus Ex or games like Bioshock then you'll probably like this game.