REVIEW

Prey Review

by Will Fidler, May 24th, 2017

To be blunt, Prey wasn’t anywhere near my list of games I was excited for in 2017. Call me shallow, but the trailers failed to light the fire of curiosity within me. Colour me impressed then that Prey not only pleasantly surprised me, but it may be the best successor to the Deus Ex and System Shock template.

Prey is an odd beast. Arkane Studios personal quest to continue ‘0451’ design philosophy has already given us the excellent Dishonored series. But to follow last years Dishonored 2 with a more slow-paced, cerebral interpretation of its core mechanical playset has served Prey well.

Despite having the unoriginal premise of a space station under alien attack, Prey has one of the most original opening hours in years. Talos 1, a secretive space station orbiting the moon, has been infested with the oil like Typhon. Waking up hours after the outbreak, you must explore the station looking for clues as to what happened and if anyone is left alive.

One of Prey’s biggest strengths is in how much freedom it gave me to follow its breadcrumbs. Story beats are few and far between (outside of the final ¼ – more on that later). In these large sections of downtime I generally had 3-4 other threads to follow, and a handful of ways to accomplish them. Tool after tool was handed to me, be it gun, power, or other.

My favourite touch was that every human resident of the station was named. Personnel logs let me look up specific people, taking me straight to them and sometimes saving me some hassle. It’s one of many small details that show Arkane’s prowess at environment design that rewards a careful eye and imaginative thinking. A locked door may have had one solution to me, but there are likely two or three that would be more apparent to someone else.

Talos 1 seems to have been designed as a semi-realistic location. Areas split off in a believable fashion, coalescing into a few hub areas that slowly become familiar landmarks. I ran from one end of the station to another half a dozen times in the 25 hours it took me to finish the main quest, as well as any major side quest I bumped into. Backtracking is a major part of Prey’s experience, but with time each area evolves, becoming more dangerous with new challenges to work around.

Talos 1 works functionally as a Gordian Knot for to unwind. Each section of the station can be unraveled, examined, or prodded. Junk can be scavenged and recycled to put into the crafting system. That, or you can cut straight to one of the many endings. Prey let me choose the length and complexity of my journey, and rarely felt like it was wasting my time.

Mimics, the primary Typhon life form, fit well into the explorative framework. The skittering, spider-like critters like to run around corners and morph into commonly found objects. An office filled with clutter will elicit a reaction of mild anxiety and the urge to whack everything with a wrench. Good encounter pacing in the first half had the blighters indeterminately jumping at me when I least expected it. Prey is happy to play the slow game, letting their existence fade into memory, only to have them leap at me when I least expected it.

Unfortunately, the rest of the enemies don’t hit the same level of quality. Phantoms, human shaped oil-slicks, populate the second half as regular encounters, with two elemental themed variants. Telepaths and Technopaths also feature heavily past a certain threshold. They are best described as resource sponges, requiring ample supplies to deal with, or focused use of special powers. When drawn out, combat becomes Prey’s biggest weakness. The last quarter of the game especially, where the narrative pace quickly ramps up, taking the difficulty curve with it. An infinitely respawning enemy type is introduced that serves to frustrate, rather than offer one last challenge.

Thankfully, Prey offers a wide tool set to compensate. While there are only two generic guns to fight back with, more imaginative devices like the Gloo Gun fill out the roster. This multi-purpose firearm can be used to freeze enemies, extinguish flames, or create makeshift bridges.

Neuromods further expand the ability set, giving the choice between Human or Typhon powers. Human abilities focus more on tangible benefits – super strength, more health, better hacking. Typhon ones are generally more abstract and require psychic energy,. Transforming into objects like a Mimic, or emitting psychic blasts are the first few available after picking up an early game item. Largely it felt like the choice between playing Prey like a Deus Ex styled robo-soldier, or gaining Dishonored’s eldritch super-powers.

This is all complimented by Prey’s solid art direction. Similar to Bioshock’s art deco inspired Rapture, Talos 1 leans heavily on retro influenced architecture. It’s a future designed by people who loved 80’s sci-fi book covers. Arkane elected for style over fidelity, which means Prey runs a lot smoother than Dishonored 2’s abysmal launch state. Obviously, a lot of love was poured into the retro-futuristic halls of Talos 1.

Prey is a fantastic experience that shouldn’t be missed by fans of Dishonored, Deus Ex, Thief, or the Shock series. It comes so close to perfection that the disappointing last quarter only mildly dampens the overall quality of the experience. If you have a love for strong environmental design, exploration, or just damn fine games, Prey may surprise you as much as it did me.