Prey - New scifi shooter from Arkane

I guess this was a big bust with the SimHQ crowd? I say that because I have close to 60 Steam friends who are almost all SimHQ members and I noticed that only one other person besides me has installed and/or played the game.

I'm just surprised because "Prey" is easily one of the best sci-fi first person shooters made within the past 10 years or so IMHO.

I'll pick this later, during some sale. It's a fairly linear shooter for around 15-20 h so not worth full price IMHO. But Arkane is a very talented developer so not surprised the game is getting such good reviews.

It took me 40 hours to finish the game and the level design is not linear at all.

So burned out on main steam FPS's. They offer nothing interesting by and large. BUT....I do need an FPS fix right about now.

I would describe Prey as a blend of RPG and FPS. It's not a shooter like Doom at all.

how'd you know without having it??

As I said in the other thread:;

Easily the best game I played all year. Arkane applied all they learned with the Dishonored series (if you like Dishonored you will love Prey) to create a whole new lore and story set on an alternative Earth timeline. Took me more than 30 hours to finish, and now I'm on a second playthrough. First one was "human powers" only. I'm going all in with alien powers on the second one.

The weapon, the powers, the mechanics - all well done and interesting. Enemies are better than I was expecting. But mostly, the game is FUN to play.

I think that just like last year with DOOM, people were not expecting it to be this good. I paid full price and, so far, it is worth every penny to me.

BTW, next Steam sale starts June 22. Amazon has it on sale for 12% discount, but the DVD only installs 6GB out of 30GB.

EDIT: Oh...and this is NOT linear. You have free roam from the start (after the in-story tutorial), and you can go on the "quests" in any order you want.

+1 Bib.

I'm also on my second playthrough and I'm doing some things quite differently this time as well.

I'm sold - will get it this weekend!

If it can't be played slow and stealthy I won't like it.
I played the first, but got tired of the alien wall anuses crapping all over me.

This Prey is nothing like the Prey with the Native American characters. The only thing they have in common is a sci-fi theme.

I'd like to get it eventually. Looks very good but I've no monies for games at the moment. I recall playing a demo of the old Prey but I don't remember much about it other than that diner level on the Indian res or wherever that was. But this looks very well done. I'm still hoping they make a Half-Life 3. Its about dang time and Valve certainly has loads of money. Maybe let Arkane make it....?....

Prey definitely as a Half Life vibe to it with some of the weapons and equipment you can use.

How do I know it's around 20h of gameplay? There is info about that in almost every review.

I wrote "fairly" linear. I know it's not CoD linear type of game but still you're discovering a space station which is limited in it's area and you need to do some backtrack. For me that's fairly linear. That's not a bad thing it just means that the game is not going to be a long one.

And how do i know it's not worth full price for me? I've been playing video games for more that 25 years and i don't have to play the game to know if i'am going to like it or not. Looking at some playthroughs on yt is more than enough for me to make that judgement.

Those reviewers obviously rushed through the game and didn't do all of the missions. Then again, rushing through a game and only playing certain parts of it and then writing a "definitive" or "exclusive" review is standard operating procedure for these PC game "reviewers".

Reviewers are in a rush to finish to publish their reviews before others do. This game has so much lore, loot and secret locations (not to mention EVA), that I doubt they saw it all in 20 hours.

As for the "length" to be based on a confined space...it is a pretty BIG confined space.

To me reviews are just to get a general idea of what a game/sim is about...I've bought games that got outstanding reviews and they sit in a drawer,,,And games that god mediocre reviews are still on my hard drive,,That's why I like the AAR forum here games played by Gamers..Got me to grab the Civil War game and love it minor bugs and all..I don't nit pick the small historical details,,When I want history I read a book,,

You're talking about the Ultimate General Civil War game? I'm still trying to get into it. So far I find it pretty bland and uninspired.

PM..Yes it isn't an out of body experience but something to pass the time..I've played Scourge of War and found that worse.Also Take Command which is passable.I like the theme ,,terrain and the confusion as a serious depiction of Civil War it isn't close...but if i took all the games off my hard drive that aren't great I'd probably only have one or two left..Maybe 3 grabbing PREY from what I've read here,,,Played the half life series into the ground..

Reviewers don't know much because they're in a rush to move on to the next game. Besides, length does not equal quality. No jokes please.
Some games could be 100 hours long, but boring to the point that no one plays that long. Others might be 20-40 but an amazing gaming experience, usually worth multiple play throughs.

I saw it said that Ghost Recon Wildlands was about 91 hours if played at a leisure pace and completionist level. 63 hours rushed.
https://howlongtobeat.com/game.php?id=43499

I say that's BS since I've got over 130 hours in it and I'm not even finished OR trying to get achievements or even every item in the game.

I want it but I dont want to pay full price for it. Ill probably pick it up when it goes on sale at the end of the year.

Same here looks great, prices are coming down now, the lowest so far is $28.99 and I'm sure a few more months it will hit my $20 sweet spot.

Well I picked it up in the Steam sale and installed it yesterday. Played for five hours and I like it alot. It has elements of System Shock, Half-Life and other great games. The pacing (in the first five hours) is excellent, just my style. I don't feel like I am constantly in danger, always under assault like in some games. But you know danger lurks around the corner. It's early, but this one looks a winner, as PM already told me

I'm glad you like it so far DBond. Arkane really does know how to make compelling first person games.

Right now I'm in the middle of playing Alien: Isolation and I'm enjoying the sheer creepiness!

I wish they had kept the American Indian theme the original Prey had; it added a really interesting twist to shooters you often never see.

Yes, thanks for the recommendation, just my style as I said.

I am really liking the environment and sense of exploration. Neuromods are cool and diverse. The story has already hooked me

Enemies are interesting and who doesn't like whacking things with a hefty pipe wrench? Multiple solutions to any problem, as is the Arkane way. Lot of backtracking, but that's OK and gives me a sense of existing in the environment as I figure it out as opposed to having different areas to 'get through'. I haven't had this much fun discovering a game's world in a long time.

Yeah, the Talos 1 station is essentially one big level that you are free to explore at any time and no section ever gets "cut off" when you complete a specific story mission.

I will chime in and add that I just finished Prey and thought it was great.

Great spiritual successor to System Shock 2. The Talos 1 was an excellently imagined location.

I remember feeling like I've crapped my pants the first time I saw a "nightmare".

I agree Pugio, Talos 1 is well designed and a place that seems to make sense. As mentioned I am enjoying discovering it. As I said in another thread, I rarely read spoilers for this sort of game, unless I get hopelessly stuck, and it's been fun exploring and solving the various challenges that arise.

As an example, there was one fabrication plan that I really wanted to find, shotgun shells. Plenty of players would google it, and beeline for the spot. I just kept playing, not knowing if I would ever actually find it. I did though, and the sense of satisfaction and discovery is much better this way. So much of what is great about this sort of game is lost on players who know ahead of time what to do, where to go, what to expect and where things are.

I have just traversed GUTS to reach the Arboretum where I halted for the night. Nightmares eh PM? There must have been something at the start of the Arboretum , because there was a hellish sound and January told me to stay away from whatever the hell it was. Thing is I didn't even see it. Probably this Nightmare aberration you speak of.

Navigating through the zero-G GUTS section was a blast. I had never done anything like that before in any previous first person shooter.

One thing I appreciate for replayability is that some of the lock codes are random, so you are forced to go through the same steps to get them. However, a few key locations with a code do not change.

I thought it was just a remake of the original, which to be honest wasn't that great.

asGood game i play it daily and like it..wore out Half life

There was a Prey 2 in the works, and Bethesda owns the name. That studio, Talking Heads I think, never produced a game that Bethesda felt comfortable releasing and it was cancelled. But they still owned the name. So they approached Arkane about it and they were all like "Well, if we can do it our way, we are in" and so they did. The original Prey took like 10 years to come out as I remember it. It was announced back when Duke Nukem was a good game. But it didn't get released until the mid-2000s.

I'd say the only things that this Prey and the old Prey have in common are the name and the fact that it's space with aliens.

This new Prey is good. It's essentially what you'd get if you melded Half-Life, System Shock 2 and Dishonored together. Nothing wrong with that.

I only played the demo for the previous "Prey" title but I really didn't care for it. This new "Prey" by Arkane really was special. It's not your typical formulaic sci-fi shooter at all.

Yep. The original Prey was a an outdated game by the time it was released. Innovative? I'd say yes, but not groundbreaking, and sales reflected that. Prey 2 had a rendered teaser trailer and a crude alpha footage as proof it existed at some point. Then everyone, except a small group of followers forgot all about it until this game was announced. Then the supposed "indignation" for Bethesda killing the original Prey franchise started, and to some point, it smeared the release of a brilliant game.

Bethesda's failure was to to wait until this was announced to confirm there would be no Prey 2 based on the original Prey, even though the developers of the original have long been absorbed by ZeniMax.

It's the one game I bought in the Steam summer sale, and I must say in all my years of gaming (and yes, I played System Shock 2 when it was new), this is the best marriage of narrative and level design I have ever seen in the FPS genre.
This will be remembered as a masterpiece of the genre, IMO.

I believe so as well. I've finished the game twice but reading this thread has tempted me to replay it again soon!

I agree, and while GUTS is very cool, it's the 'free flight' around the entire facility that I find even better, revealing the sheer scale of the station and hinting at the disaster within..

I don't want to sound hyperbolic, but I can think of little about this game that is poorly implemented. Sound design is fantastic, the narrative as Sinner put it is excellent. I am enjoying piecing together the story from the fragments found around the station. I admit there are some games where I tend to skim over some of the reading that is encountered, but in Prey that isn't the case, no doubt helped by the brevity of said fragment. There isn't too much of it. I would even say that one of Prey's strengths is there isn't TOO much of anything really. There is plenty of diversity.. in settings, in actions, in solutions, in tools, even in enemies.

Upgrades/skill trees are attractive and useful. I like any game that makes me dwell over choices, weighing the opportunity cost. Neuromod fabrication perhaps lessens this to an extent, but still, I find so many of them attractive, unlike say Dishonored 2 where most of the skills just weren't for me and I had become upgraded as far as I cared to be within a short time.

Maybe you could argue that Prey isn't a great shooter, but my shotgun begs to differ

I finished Prey, and what a good game. No bugs that I noticed, no crashes. One of the best games of the year I'd say. I got 60 hours out of it, with zero spoliers, so maybe I take more time than most. As mentioned I enjoyed the storyline and the various missions and objectives. It's not unique to Prey, but I felt that by 2/3 of the way through I was probably too powerful. The caution I would exercise in the early stages was no longer necessary and I could proceed at will regardless of what stood in the way. The tension and uncertainty that I felt early on was great. But again, this sort of thing is common to most games these days. Start off weak and scared, but become so powerful that there is little danger or chance of biting off more than you can chew so to speak.

I wanted to keep playing, to discover more of the story, to uncover every little tidbit. I was probably more completionist in this one than most games of this sort that I play. I got the 'best' ending, and gotta say I was left confused and didn't understand exactly what had just happened, so I did google that and saw what it was all about. Didn't see that coming.

If there is one thing I will single out as something I didn't care for, it was the hacking. Lots of games have a hacking mini-game, and I find some more fun or challenging than others. I never did get on with the version in Prey. I did OK and hacked everything. But I never felt like I got any better at it, less clumsy. I think a controller would have made it a lot easier with it's analog control. Using the keyboard I was never what you'd call precise lol.

I know the guy in charge of this game just called it quits. But I hope Arkane continues with the Prey IP. Arkane makes slick games and looking forward to more.

Heh, interesting topic you bring up DBond about hacking mini-games. I think the original Bioshock probably had the most difficult hacking mini-game of any that I've played. And those nasty electrical shocks you'd get if you failed just made it even worse.

I really, really don't enjoy hacking in games unless they have made it into a clear, discernible mini-game that's actually fun. I detest the hacking in Splinter Cell Double Agent.

You guys are really making Prey sound so good. I'd end up getting it anyways but its nice to hear all these good things about it from you all the same.

Detest is the same word I would use for that same hacking crap in SC: Double Agent.

So last week I decided I wanted to play through this awesome game again and noticed on Steam that they had added new achievements, pointing to the new DLC, which, based on the achievements themselves, seems like it may be set on or around the Moon. So I decided to hold off until it's out.

Anyone know when this is?

Oh, I had no clue they were going to release any DLC's for "Prey". Everything I read suggested that the game was not a commercial success so there were no plans for a DLC.


As for me personally, I've finished the game three times. I guess you can say I liked it!

https://www.destructoid.com/arkane-...suspicious-new-achievements-503612.phtml

Maybe it's not DLC. I dunno. Hoping it is. The link states the reveal is June 10.

There's more games than money in my wishlist but I've been pondering hard what to try to finally purchase whenever the Steam or GOG summer sales happen. I still really want this game as I love a good scifi FPS and I still want Dishonored 2. If I'm careful and the sales are good hopefully I can pick up two or three. Arkane makes good games so I don't think I'll be disappointed. Unfortunately D2 sounds like it still has and will continue to have performance issues but if its better than it was on release, the game world, story and gameplay are usually so good it would still be worth it even if I had to put up with some optimization issues.

Dishonored 2 has had several patches and the last time I played through it a couple of months ago, I had no performance issues at all.

Hey Coot, we had this conversation in December Just joking

They are both great games. I had little performance trouble with Dishonored 2 aside from one spot, which was the opening section of the Clockwork Mansion, and even then it dropped to only 30 fps.. Otherwise it runs like butta on my box. Same with Prey.. Arkane never fails to impress me. Not only do their games tend to be innovative and fun, they are also technically polished. No crashes, bugs or poor performance. YMMV.

Having played both games, if I could only play one I'd choose Prey. I wrote in another thread that Prey is like Dishonored, System Shock 2 and Half-Life melded in to one game. D2 is great as well, but as a sequel it has some sense of been there done that. Not that that affected my enjoyment or perception of the game. I really liked it. But Prey was fresh. And I think I completed D2 in 10 or 12 hours where it took 60 on Prey. Can't go wrong with either, but if you're on the fence, and if you've played D1, I'd go with Prey.

I concur with DBond. What struck me most about "Prey" when I first played it was its originality and the dark, intriguing storyline that gets better as you go along. My only slight disappointment is that there's really no difference whether you play as a male or female Morgan Yu.

Agreed PM, and you're the one who turned me on to it in the first place, recommending it. A fine recommendation it was

Arkane is the spiritual successor to Looking Glass in my view. Dishonored is the spiritual successor to Thief, and Prey to System Shock. I want more Arkane kool-aid, so snap up a copy so we see more

Anyway, now that I see the reveal is June 10th, the actual DLC or expansion or whatever it may be has gotta be some way off. So maybe I'll give it another run before then.

And I was wrong, D2 took 30 hours.

lol. I also just noticed I had a double post.

As we discussed this all last year and seeing as how I still agree with you all this year I think I'll try to pick up Prey on the sale. I believe it went to twenty dollars last year. Maybe I can get both but there some other things I'd really like to get so if I get only one Arkane game it'll probably get Prey.

I really enjoy games with that kind of setting. I'm hoping they make an Alien Isolation 2. The new System Shock game looks nice too. I never played it back when but I do have SS2 modded on Gog and its pretty fun.

Well, like I said you can't go wrong either way in my opinion. But I'd still go for Prey, and it's better bang for the buck, since for me at least, it was twice as long. I think it's worth it just for the zero gravity stuff which I really enjoyed. Prey has a far better story than D2 in my opinion. The setting is better, subjectively. Ah, well, you'll just need to get both and tell us what you think

Steam Summer sale begins June 21st.

No aim down sights with Prey though. Thats honestly the only reason I have not bought it yet. I'll probably pick it up next sale or so but going back to 90s reticle shooting is a pretty big step backwards.

waiting on a sale after the price has gone down..........look very boring i was expecting a survivor horror like dead space where you dont know what is the enemy, but from gameplay its very obvious......and i never buy bethesda games on release EVER

To each his own and all that, but Prey actually has an enemy that is precisely not what it appears to be. Maybe you should try it before drawing conclusions. Or don't. If you know it's boring, it will be I suppose.

Well, not only did they reveal the DLC on June 10th, they released it! That's keepin' it on the down low.

Not sure exactly what it is, but evidently a new campaign, with no two playthroughs the same. Different levels, enemies, resources each time.

My guess is that it's a bit short hence the ever-changing setup.



https://store.steampowered.com/app/865670/Prey__Mooncrash/

Thanks for the info DBond. Looks like I’ll be reinstalling Prey soon.

No worries, and yesterday Steam installed a 1.9 GB update for the game. I wonder what that is? Did it download the DLC and all you need to do is unlock it? There is also a new multiplayer mode that is supposed to go online shortly. I wonder what was in that big update?

new game modes problably, survivor and new game plus

Bought the new DLC yesterday and played about an hour of it. It's a very different format from the standard single player game but I'm enjoying it so far.

I read up on it a bit more and understand better what the DLC is. Try to escape with 5 different characters. There's a timer, so less about exploration than the main game.Each run is scored based on things you've found or killed and you gain currency to equip the characters with whatever loadout you want. You could take nothing but recycler charges if you want. Or a shedload of neuromods or whatever. If one character picks something up, that item is not there when you use the next character. The goal is to have all 5 escape within the same 'simulation run'. Seems an interesting spin on the gameplay, but I'd like to hear more. Let us know your take once you've played a while PM.

Will do. So far I've only done one run with one character. It took me a while to catch on to what I was really supposed to be doing.

Much obliged.

Thanks, good to know as I was looking at it recently.

Combat is perhaps the weakest part of this game. I wouldn't buy it for the combat. It's not a great shooter. It's a shooter like Deus Ex is a shooter, ya know?

My first playthrough was with a shotgun and pistol focus and I dominated everything. Human skill tree only, weapons and security specialization, some engineering and science skills to round things out. If you recycle a lot of junk you can keep yourself well-supplied with ammo.

That's what I did on my run too, although I used a few Typhon mods to the point of not-quite-tripping the defenses. But the shotgun was my main get outta my way stick.

I'm about 28 hrs into my first playthrough and... linear it definitely is not. The game is pretty awesome, definitely similar to System Shock 1 and 2.

If I have any complaints, they'd be that I should have played on hardest difficulty from the beginning, that there were more random enemy spawns, and the game was structured in a slightly more restrictive way, closer to how the two 'Shock' games are, where the available sections of the station you can access grow as the plot develops.

The game's soooooo open. I can literally do things is so many different orders and ways.

And the hardcore survival options are pretty neat. When I started, I accidentally blew up an explosive canister giving myself a concussion, and I decided to play on, not loading my game. Little did I know, I would have to spend my next five or ten hours surviving while I tried to find a medbay to relieve my malady before I could use my first neuromod. By the time I did I had accumulated quite a stash.

Great fun.

I was forced to handle multiple problems and scenarios in very unconventional ways due to how underpowered I was to everything else.

This game begs being replayed many different times in many different ways.

I'm still pretty early into it but I'm enjoying it. It took me some effort to get it running right though. I had one of those experiences where it would appear that the framerates were good but it had really bad stuttering almost as if there is a control lag or latency issue. It was one of "those" pc performance issues to that no matter how I set my options, even turning everything to minimum it made ZERO improvement which tells me something is not right. I never could find an adequate answer and out of desperation I tried something that happened to be a bizarre fix for another game. I have to press the Windows Key + L to logout and then log back into windows. When I return to the game the stutter is gone, its completely smooth and I have it set to max settings. I don't know why I have to do this but I do. At least it fixed my problem.

That being said once again I have to commend Arkane. These folks know how to design a game not only world and game play but in this particular case I'm talking about how they utilize a pre-existing engine to an uncommon level of quality. I always have a sort of knee jerk reaction when I see a game that I'm interesting in using the Cryengine. By and large the Crysis games are done well( I still think the first one is the better game and I think that is the better looking engine version as well). However, I've played numerous other games that used this engine to poor effect. Many of them don't take advantage visually of what Cryengine can do and they run like trash. As much as I appreciate Kingdom Come Deliverance(however I've hit a wall in that game and I just don't have it in me to muscle through it right now) I hate that they went with Cryengine because the game just isn't optimized well and even though it has its moments, it not necessarily an exemplary representation of Cryengine and again, my issues are the performance issues which are significant. So when I saw that Prey used Cryengine I was a bit turned off. However, once again, Arkane shows their skill level with this game. I really can't see any similarity between this game and another Cryengine game meaning it doesn't look like a copy and paste clone and not only that, the animations and character modeling and rendering are impressive and it all looks like its own world.

I do find I can only play the game for small spurts because my eyes have a hard time focusing on the game for some reason. One of these days I would like to get a good gaming monitor which would probably be a huge benefit but its something that has to wait. I don't know if I'm just getting to that age where I can't handle some of the action and pace that I could handle in my teens and twenties or if maybe my monitor is getting long in the tooth.(I bought it back in 2010 to play Red Dead Redemption on)

So I've played a bit more of Mooncrash and I'm just not feeling it. I guess I'm just not as much into the survival type gameplay as I am into the story-driven first person shooter gameplay. I've gotten as far as unlocking the third character but my interest to continue waned. Maybe I'll pick it up again later.

Oh man, I love the survival elements in Prey proper. I'm not sure how the game must have been before the patch, but they add to the experience. My first four or five hours, maybe seven, were spent searching, surviving, trying to find a medlab to cure my concussion so I could use my first neuromod. Yep. I busted my head on the set when I decided blowing up a flammable canister was a good idea. I didn't load my game.

If anything, I wish the survival elements were even more in-depth, and the item spawns were random. Maybe they are. I haven't replayed the game yet.

I find survival allows you to tweak the narrative into your own. Overarching stories are essential, but to me, when I can make them my own, by diverging from a set course and forging my own path, helps me own the experience.

For the past two years every now and then I think to myself I gotta play Prey again. I played before Mooncrash, and was interested when it was released, but never followed through. Tonight I read up on the new modes that had been added with the Mooncrash patch. Not too exciting, except for the Traumas thing. New game + modes are usually worth a go, but with Prey I don't think so. As far as I can tell, nothing changes except you. Nothing's ramped up aside from your abilities and while god-mode can be fun, not what I'm after in Prey. It's a game that needs tension, and player innovation or improvisation to be at its best I think, and that would be gone the way it works in Prey.

So I decided to reinstall the game (built a new box) and while waiting for it to download I thought I'd bring up this thread to see what was talked about. Getting to Blastman's post last, I read it and thought now that's exactly what I want to get out of this run, nice post man. Survivalist modes are usually about scarcity and sustenance, not that it's bad, and works well in a lot of games. But not necessarily what I want out of Prey. But Traumas, this sounds great. Adding a new level of effect to your cause. You know, sort of like a Fallout New Vegas in hardcore mode vibe, where you had to weigh each action against what semi-permanent negative effect it could have on you, forcing you to trek all the way back to a doctor to fix your bent appendage, hoping nothing dangerous found you on the way. OK maybe not exactly like that, but maybe it's a point.

The thing that really looks good is Traumas can be set apart from the other Survival mode things like oxygen and weapon degradation, neither of which I'd care for really. Well, maybe oxygen would be OK. I had been thinking of what sort of run I would do to set it apart from my first two, but I think the Traumas might be just enough to spice it up. I'm intrigued by a typhon-only run, but I think in the end I would tire of it. No hacking, repair or expanded inventory playing that way right? So this notion of more risk and divergent gameplay through not only what I do, but how I do it, sounds good and gives me a nice way to mix up the experience while still building the sort of character have fun with and not too many self-imposed restrictions.

I'm not really sold on Mooncrash, it seems something I'd like for a bit but not something I'd sink the teeth in to. So the Traumas seem a good way to add something interesting to what was already one of my favorite games of the last five years and give it a third go.

Prey was the last game I really beat. Really enjoyed it in a way I haven't enjoyed a game since Dead Space 1. Dead Space 2 was okay, but didn't bother with 3 since it seems really best if Co-op.

I played it and found out it didn't fit my playing style at all. I am a completionist and explorer when it comes to first person games but the longer you take to get through the level the more enemies show up for you to fight or evade. In other words, I felt rushed to get through each round.

This is absolutely correct. Having said that, it's one of the best coop experiences I've ever had with any first person shooter. It's also the ONLY first person shooter I've played to date where there is no "happy ending".

Have you replayed it?

Prey is one of the games I never got around to turning off cloud saves, so when I reinstalled it there were my other runs. I played my first campaign in July of 17. According to those saves it took 65 hours and I got the "I and Thou" achievement for completing the game "in the most empathetic manner possible" I moved on and then came back a year later, in June of 18, but this run was never finished and it was right at the same time Mooncrash dropped, so I'm surprised I didn't jump on that. It seems a very cool take on the game, but after running though it a couple times I wonder if I'd keep playing.

But Prey's main game is fantastic. Reading back though this thread I see I described it as a combination of Half-Life, System Shock and Dishonored, three all-time classics, and with that sort of vibe how can you go wrong? It's just my sort of game and I'm looking forward to giving it a go starting tonight.

Anyone else play Prey with the Survival mode? Which options did you go with? I'm thinking traumas + oxygen, and this cannot be changed after starting so I want to make the right choice.

Here's probably a realistic take on the 'new' game modes. I say new, but this is two years old. New for me.

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2018/06/14/prey-game-modes/

I was hoping someone would post their experience with the new options. So I'll go traumas and oxygen and leave weapon degradation off. It's sort of silly anyway, with no effect through the first 99% of loss, then boom, it all kicks in at 1%. So don't need that if that's how it works.

Planning to make it a Hard run, with those two survival options on, and go with neuromods, no restrictions. Mostly human, with probably typhon up to the detection limit. That's a good combo and one I've had fun with. Hopefully I'll find things I've missed, get new achievements, and try some different build paths than I've used before. Try some new abilities. I still however, plan to excessively use the shotgun. And this time, I already know where it is

Loving it. What a great game Prey is.

But the traumas are hardly noticed and have added little to my experience. A bit of a letdown as I reckoned they'd cause a shift in how I played. I've done essentially everything up to the first trip down the G.U.T.S., and so far I've been third-degree burned twice and had one hemorrhage and one concussion. These cause minor inconveniences. For example when the burn status is active, it simply limits max health until you take care of it. So if your max health is normally 115, it will be 105 until you remove the burned status. I play very cautiously, always sure of my surroundings and aware of threats so it's not often I get taken by surprised or dog-piled. The burns came from corrupted operators who got too close.

But overall, I'm finding it rare that things get out of hand enough to have one of the trauma statuses applied. Bigger dangers await, so we'll see how it goes from here. The bigger effect on my game is playing on Hard. I must have played on Normal before, because enemies certainly deal more damage, a single hit from a Mimic can take over half of your health in the early stages. It's been too long since I played to say if the AI is harder at this level, but they certainly hit harder.

It's fun playing Prey again, it's a game right in my wheelhouse. the opening stages are worth it alone, from the neat intro credits roll, through the point where you see what is really going on, and then discovering the true nature of the situation inside Talos. This sort of thing has been done before of course, but Arkane really polished it all up and put an innovative spin on it. It's not quite the same a second or third time, since you already know, but anyone playing Prey for the first time must do themselves a favor and avoid spoilers until you are well in to it, and better yet, none at all. It's a game that is best when you don't already know what's about to happen, as all games are really. But Prey especially.

Remember the movie "When a Stranger Calls"? It had a plot twist that had impact when you didn't know it was coming. The remake a few years ago, actually put this twist in the trailers! Sheesh. Don't compromise the experience by knowing it ahead of time. I'm really digging the new run, I remember enough to make it smooth and intuitive, but forget enough that I can still be surprised.

I'm still working on the game off and on myself. Still my first play through. It really is a great and well made game. I can't imagine the survival aspect would be fun for me on this game. As most of that seemed to come after the original release, because it wasn't built into the main game I think it would feel too shallow and tacked on for me to enjoy. I need to have a great story and narrative along with good gameplay. I tend to HATE "trials" and "arena" type modes in games. I don't find them fun and for me it actually detracts and potentially dilutes what should be solely devoted and concentrated into the main single player game. I finished the main game of God of War recently which was great but even though they are cool looking, unfortunately the two remaining realms I never traveled to are basically one big trials level and one big arena type level. There is some new dialogue between characters which is nice but these two game modes make the original game world and its enemies feel like nothing more than NPC fodder instead of the lore-based interesting foes that you initially encounter. It cheapens it for me which I hate. Its the same idea I hated in some of the later Ghost Recon games. You'd start your training tutorial level and instead of the developers making a kill house with dummies or use non-lethal weapons against adversarial clothed friendlies they literally had you kill, while in TRAINING, the same stinkin' generic enemy NPCs you would go on to face in the game. That makes encountering enemies during the story not feel like real enemies. Lazy, cheap and immersion destroying in my opinion.

Currently in Prey I have 58 hours. I only recently got to the reactor level so I don't know how far in the story it is. I shouldn't take such long breaks in between game time as I forget what's going on. I've been playing this first play through for about two years I guess. I love the space walking stuff and most things feel great. I wish the powers were easier to switch between. I do like that the action pauses when in your wheel inventory but it is a little awkward still to switch powers and it feels like it stunts the combat momentum too much. I also like the audio log stuff. I love lore building mechanics in game such as listening to audio logs, reading documents or being able to pick up and examine in game objects in a full 3D way. Its such a simple yet significant and impactful lore building tool.

Of all the first person shooters I've ever played, I'd say the beginning of Prey was the most intriguing and surprising. It was definitely one of those memorable big gaming moments for me.

I agree Panzer. Things aren't always as they seem is a recurring theme, isn't it? The mimics are a manifestation of this in the form of an enemy. Pretty clever really.

I'm pretty far along in this new run, just about to enter Deep Storage, having spent yesterday clearing out Crew Quarters. I said that I did a hybrid run earlier and installed Typhon mods up to the detection point. Well, that's just two mods, which is nothing. This time I've gone right past that in to turrets-hate-me mode. Turrets aren't much of a threat, and they aren't much of a help either. I found I was spending a lot of spare parts keeping them running. Every time you return to that level the newly spawned Typhon have wrecked all the defenses, requiring another round of repairs. Not worth it really, aside from early on when you can use all the help you can get.

This time through I got the scrounging perks and as a result am able to fabricate a lot of neuromods and so I have more abilities. It's on Hard this time, but even then it's not imperative. Just having fun playing with a more diverse character, with more abilities on call. Psychoshock and shotgun combo is strong against the toughest enemies, but there are many ways to approach it. I use the disruptor stun gun a lot too. The silenced pistol was important early, but now I just use it for mimics. I actually killed a Nightmare with one too, but I played him for a fool and took advantage of the fact they cannot unlock doors. I've seen way many more Nightmares this time, because of the Typhon mods I'm sure.

Because of my playstyle, minerals are the bottleneck for me, mostly spent on shotgun shells. With the Necropsy perk exotic mats are plentiful.

I haven't seen much new, as I was thorough in my earlier runs. I did get a different pistol that I don't think I got in the first run. A little better than the first one. Anything else would be too much spoiler. Not sure what the statute of limitations is on game spoilers, but I won't do it. Maybe someone will be tempted to play Prey based on this thread, and any spoilers would ruin it.

I still love the microgravity gameplay. That doesn't seem to get old for me. The pace of Prey is excellent. Exploration, stealth, cool abilities, a fantastic world with top-tier level design and a good story. So much to like about this game. I even love the way info is displayed. The way messages pop, flash, and fade, and even the font. The audio cues. It's appealing. Arkane knows what they are doing.

Thief 2 was the first game where I began to notice these touches. The sound T2 played when you completed an objective remains one of my favorite to this day. I still vividly recall the Bank mission, and how much time I spent casing the joint looking for a way in. I found one, and as I slipped in that awesome sound played and I smiled the smile of the accomplished haha. Something satisfying about it. Prey hits these points. It's a minor thing that most may not notice all that much, but these sorts of finishing touches add a lot to a game for me. Arkane are really good at it.

I still have a lot of the game ahead of me. One goal is to find every crew member, which I hadn't done in previous runs. There are a few achievements I am hunting on this run, but most I got in earlier runs. I think finding all crew will be hard without spoilers. I can use security terminals, but can only track one at a time, so that could be tedious. So we'll see.





I think you are probably right. I'm running oxygen and traumas and both are hardly noticed. I like having them, because it gives me more to consider, more to be prepared for, more attention for being kitted out properly. But after a while, the things you need to fix up are plentiful. I'm carrying 30 suit repair kits and am now recycling anything over that. So it's not a big deal. Interestingly, these things are not 'tacked on', but were in the game from the start, and then removed prior to release. So while Coot's conclusion is probably accurate, it actually happened in reverse.

I can't remember if this topic has been brought up before but I was also impressed with the people Arkane got to do the voice acting.


1. Benedict Wong - Most people probably know him for his roles in Dr. Strange and the Avengers movies.

2. James Hong - A prolific character actor who has been in Blade Runner, Big Trouble in Little China, War of the Worlds (remake), an X-Files episode and also did a voice for the Kung Fu Panda animated movies.

3. Elya Baskin - Another prolific character actor who has been in 2010, Air Force One, Transformers, Spider Man 2 and 3, etc.

Prey is a game that deserves way more sales of several orders of magnitude greater than they've had. As far as single player games are concerned, it is among the best of all time.

Arkane is a wonderful studio. Anyone who has never played Arx Fatalis, should. That was one of their first games but there are some characters/cultures that were quite memorable, even a decade after I played through it. I'm a Ultima Underworld fan, though, which Prey and Arx both owe their roots to.

I'm hoping Cyberpunk follows in their footsteps, but it may turn out it is closer to Elder Scrolls games than the Underworld genre--although even Elder Scrolls owes part of its lineage to Underworld, also.

Right on Blastman, and it was actually your last post in this thread that really inspired me to try the Survival options and give Prey another go. Turns out they are minor additions, but still, it adds something to the gameplay.

About Cyberpunk. It's really the only game I am looking forward to. I watched the first video Steam has on their Store page yesterday and I want to play this even more now. Can't wait.

I've read articles on this very topic and one major conclusion seems to be ineffective marketing. I don't know about you but I had no clue about "Prey" until a couple of months after it was released and then I found out about the game from word of mouth and how it was a sci-fi shooter that was originally supposed to be the successor to the "Prey" shooter from over a decade earlier that featured a Native American main character.

I just watched it as well. It really looks like Altered Carbon: The Video Game.

There's some talk that the name itself affected sales.

Maybe if it had been called Neuroshock or something it would have sold better.

Regardless of what it's called, I'm surprised it didn't do better considering Arkane's recent track record with the immersive sim genre. It's not a moniker I like all that much, immersive sim, but I'd reckon Prey should have ridden Dishonored's coattails to more success. What are the actual figures?

Maybe our unstinting praise of the game will result in a few more sales.

The first Prey was really good, and I enjoyed the American Indian aspect of it--their culture has always been pretty interesting. I also recall hearing about Prey before it was released, but I recall there being some confusion as to why there was no more American Indian culture in the game. They did a pretty poor job explaining it had nothing to do with Prey and everything to do with System Shock.

Perhaps a different name would have helped them sell more copies.?

But even a good name can't overcome bad marketing.

There's so much good to be talked about in Prey. The climbing and crawling mechanics! How many games have such fluid motion of your character where you can literally climb up to the highest areas of a level and then manage to hide among the tightest spaces trying to outflank your opponent and catch them from behind? Prey does this so well! Better than any other game I've played.

I'll have to dig up the article online but while no official numbers were given, the article mentioned that Dishonored 2's sales were a significant drop from the first Dishonored. It's my theory that the drop wasn't due to any perceived drop in quality but due to changing tastes of the mainstream gaming market.

+1


I'm convinced this was a significant factor behind the lackluster sales.

Who the voice actors are has never meant anything to me, other than Steven Russel has to be Garrett. What matters to me is how well the voice actors act

Prey is again excellent here. The voice acting is superb, the dialog is well written, and it seems to find that nice middle ground of being useful and interesting while at the same time not being excessive and drawn out. It all serves a purpose, even if it isn't immediately evident why. You could listen to a message in the opening Neuromod Division level and not have it mean anything until many areas later. Matter of fact, a lot of this was missed by me until the second and third run, where these sorts of touches become evident. Names of the crew start to register and it all ties more tightly together. It's very difficult to piece it together sometimes unless you were taking notes, or, playing more than once when it all starts to become more evident.

It's never really mattered to me if a game has known actors voicing the roles. I really don't care about that stuff. Dishonored had a bunch, and while it makes an interesting talking point, in the end I couldn't care less if the voice actor is famous. That's more for marketing folks and those within the company who set the budget. I'd imagine they could cut a big slice off the budget if they were paying voice actors scale. It's not that I don't want these name actors in my games, more that I really don't care if they are. None of this was PMs point, but just my take on the matter.

I mentioned it before in this thread a couple years ago now. But if there is one thing I would single out as poorly designed in this game it's the hacking. I really do not like it. I've gone level 2 hacking mod in this run, but that's just for expedience. Honestly I'd rather take longer to find an alternative way in than do more of this hacking.

I agree with all of you on Prey's quality down to player feedback and ques which I love seeing more in more in new games. There's so many clever ways now to give players information without having to have obstructive HUD clutter or intrusive, game stopping menus and sub menus. However Prey does include lots of the kinds of extra special effects that I tend to hate in games. Like too many sound effects that are not only abrasive but for some reason are set to an excruciating decibel level. Also too many flashy "fake" type Movie effects that just seem to fry my brain and nerves and can be a little overwhelming or even oppressive. I love the GLOO gun in Prey. I like how it not only slows enemies but canwhich is very clever. As Dbond mentioned too, I think the mimic class enemies are a really cool and clever enemy type. I'm not sure I've seen a game create such a unique enemy class. I was going to say what they do but like Dbond says, we should be considerate of spoilers just in case. I edited my last post for something that I did not realize at the time was a little spoiler.

I like a good voice actor too but I had no idea who voice acted in Prey so thanks PM for posting that. I especially know the last two character actors very well. The Asian man I'm certain I've seen in tons of shows in movies including MacGyver and other 80s/90s television shows. Isn't the other gentleman a Russian defector in real life too? I think I may have even seen him in a MacGyver episode playing a Russian defector on tv. The first guy looks familiar. Was he Genghis Khan in the Marco Polo series?

Speaking of Dishonored 2, I'm currently frustrated with that title and simply because it runs like crap. I've tried everything and have seen many others with issues as well as others supposedly showing improvements by way of sometimes extensive workarounds. I don't know what frame pacing is but this seems to be what most folks are saying is the game's performance issue. I have a GTX 970 so I don't know if perhaps a step up or two in video card will help. This card however has and continues to serve me well. What's also frustrating is that the performance is extremely inconsistent and all over the place. I tend to think the game has some sort of memory issue too maybe. The quality and story still seem to be there as with the first game which I loved and played through twice but its borderline unplayable for me most of the time. There will be like one corner of the city that slows to a crawl while another smooths up but mostly its consistently bad performance. Prey still amazes me that I can run at max and ultimate which I not only normally can not do in any game, I certainly can't do it in a Cryengine game. Arkane did an amazing job using that engine and optimizing it. I wish Dishonored 2 could have likewise followed suit.

Also speaking of voice actors, I never looked into who performs him but I love the voice acting work of Daud. That guy does a great job.

The GTX 970 is quite a bit outdated now for current day games but there are indeed performance issues with the graphics engine in Dishonored 2. A LOT of people complained about it online but it seems that it was never fixed.

D2 ran great for me, aside from the opening section of the Clockwork Mansion level, where my frames dropped from 60 to 30. Otherwise it ran smoothly. Prey's like butta too. I played D2 on a 1070. I just looked at Steam to see when I last played, which would in turn tell me which video card I was using, and it says I haven't played it since July of 2017? Can it be that long ago already? Sheesh. I'm going to have to give that game another run too I think.




Yeah, that's a good point. It may sound strange, but I like it. Prey's the sort of game I have to play with headphones, and you're right, some of the sounds played when new messages pop or you've completed an objective are brain-rattling. Like you really need to have such an auditory assault when a Nightmare starts hunting you. But when that resonance hits me I feel it, and for me it adds to the game. It's completely out of place in one sense, but it has some level of visceral appeal to me. At the very least it should be a toggle, as I can see that some players would want to turn it off. I would think I would too, a stealth game doesn't need booming bass out of nowhere. Instead, I find it oddly awesome, like the game is shot through me. I have it turned up pretty loud in the phones too. Not my usual thing, but Prey has great soundscape.

The Clockwork Mansion and the derelict mansion where you keep alternating between two different timelines are among the most memorable levels I've ever played in any first person shooter.

Oh yeah, for sure PM. We talked about it a bit in the D2 thread. I have to admire the level of creativity that Arkane has to come up these things. And then to pull it off technically and mechanically on top of it. Playing those missions I felt I was seeing what I wanted Thief 4 to be. I keep hoping Arkane will be given a greenlight on a new Thief game, and they've already worked with Steven Russel. If anyone can give me the Thief game I think we should have now by 2020 it's these guys. I'd love to see what they could do with that IP and today's technical and graphical possibilities. There's such a direct lineage for me between the Looking Glass games and Arkane games that it just seems like something that HAS to happen. The term spiritual successor is used a lot, but it's especially true in this case. Thief to Dishonored and System Shock to Prey. Now give us Thief to Thief, ya know?

Back to Prey, I think I might have a shot at finding all of the crew members. It will just as probably come down to one without a bracelet that I can't find. But I saw the total number on the 'net and I'm not so far away already. We'll see.

This is the first run where I've invested heavily in Typhon mods and they're sick. Well, a couple are. Psychoshock is amazing. In my first run, I installed Psychoshock I, which in itself is really good. Now I have Psychoshock III and it wrecks. I tend to shy away from OP mechanics, preferring to keep some semblance of challenge. But this is just so much fun, and challenge is great and all, but so is exploding Phantoms in a blink. Even the biggest and baddest enemies, like Telepaths and Technopaths are taken out with a shock-shotgun combo in a few shots.

I also have installed the Mimic mod and Electrostatic Burst for dealing with any operators bunched together. The stun gun is great too, especially when upgraded. I plan to get mind-jack too, but not sure how many chances are left to use it. Having hostile turrets is not a reason to avoid using these alien abilities, even though that's what I thought my first time through. But turrets are push overs, literally and figuratively and most are taken out by the Typhon anyway.

And even though I don't seem to mind my god-like powers with top-tier Psychoshock, I draw the line at combat focus and have never used it. Just not how I want to play, but I know it is very powerful. I just reached the Cargo Bay in the main story.

What you described concerning the Typhon abilities and making the game too easy is a fundamental pitfall of any shooter that offers powerful augmentations. It happened to me with all of the Star Wars Jedi games as well as the Deus Ex games. For example, once you have the top tier "Force Push" power in some of the Star Wars games you don't even need to fight melee anymore! Just push all of your enemies off a cliff and you're done.


edit: I do believe there's an achievement in Prey for finishing the game without using ANY neuromods. Now that is hardcore.

Yeah, No Needles it's called. Dishonored has the same sort of thing.

I couldn't deal without expanded inventory at the very least. Hardcore for sure. Making due with like three weapons and having to trek to a recycler ten times more often right? It's more or less the same with a Typhon-only run. There is an achievement for finishing the game once human-only and once Typhon-only.

You're right of course about the augmentation thing. That word evokes Deus-Ex which was just as vulnerable to this. So it comes down to finding a good balance between a compelling challenge and having fun with the toys. Probably why we invent house rules, to restrict ourselves from game-breaking weapons or abilities, or gimping ourselves in other ways when we do take on an OP ability. Like me not using combat focus. And then again, sometimes it's fun just being the badass with a get out of my way stick. A game like Prey is good to experiment with, as there are so many paths for builds and game progression that it's easy to customize the experience to play it how you want.

Speaking of achievements, I've been hunting some on this run as I near the end of the game. There's a point of no return, I think when you get the Repo Man objective. At this point you want to clean up anything you're going for before proceeding down that quest line.

I installed the first combat focus to get the Dead Calm achievement, plus I got the mimic ones. I'm trying to get the collection ones, for email, transcribes and crew. Transcribes has fired and the others aren't too far away.

At this point I am about ready to start summoning Nightmares. When you first encounter them, you want to just run away and hide. But by the late stages I look forward to fighting them. There's a quest to do some stuff and then you have Nightmares on call. For that you get the You Rang? achievement.

I have found a lot of new stuff on this run, things I missed the first time though. One reason for this is tracking down all of the crew members using security stations and tracking bracelets is leading me to spots that are well hidden, places I most likely would not have found on my own. I've been much more thorough overall, and even though I'm playing on Hard, I'm a lot more powerful than the earlier runs, mainly due to neuromod fabrication, but I've also found and scrounged a lot more materials and neuromods. I got the Materials Expert and Necropsy perks fairly early on, and this pays off with much more materials on hand.

Psychoshock + full-upgraded shotgun is awesome, and I have fully upgraded suit and scope to install chipsets that are tailored to boosting psi powers. The one I want to find but have yet to find is the chipset that detects greater mimics. This, I could really use.

I don't think I have mentioned this but there is a Prey "easter egg" in the "Death of the Outsider" DLC for Dishonored 2. Let me know if you want me to spoil it.

I think it's OK, but I am not final arbiter

I hate the Outsider, and I'm glad he's dead (he is right?)

Not sure if I'll ever play that DLC.

I thought he fit in D1, there needs to be a way to show how Corvo got his powers I think. But in D2 I felt he was out of place, and the voice actor they hired didn't help.

So since we are spoiling, did the Outsider actually find death in Death of the Outsider?

It depends on what choice you make at the end of the game. It's up to the player.

I would choose to death him.