But then I realized that Prey’s approach is more novel: you’re given a task, such as saving someone or killing them, and your actions determine your moral position. When I finally encountered some living, breathing humans and heard about their predicaments, at first I was disappointed at the lack of dialogue options to decide what the outcome of those quests would be. It’s the closest thing to a fast-travel system Prey has, but it’s annoyingly tough to figure out where the right airlock is, especially since there’s no “up” in the zero-G environment. I did, however, get a little sick of trying to find my way around the outside of the station. I didn’t get tired of seeing the arboretum, the cargo bay, the lobby, the crew quarters, or any of the others, though, because I usually had unlocked new abilities that let me access new nooks and crannies since the last time I’d been there. “Your main quest – and the many side quests that can extend the life of Prey from a 15 to 20-hour run to something more on the order of 40 or 50 – will send you back and forth across the same moderately varied zones repeatedly. Plus, it’s a pleasant surprise that you’re able to move and climb so nimbly in general, and moreso when it’s upgraded, letting you reach some out-of-the-way places and further encouraging exploration. Even though I didn’t have all the abilities I needed to exploit them, it’s fun just to try to spot all the ways into a locked room and appreciate the thought that went into designing these puzzles. (Granted, that’s also shown up in recent Deus Ex and Dishonored games, though not on this style of open map.) One character build might look for opportunities to hack into computer terminals to bypass locked doors, while another would use brute force to open doors or remove barricades, and still others might just search the environment until they find the passcode written carelessly on a post-it note somewhere. What makes Prey feel more distinct is the flexible, semi-open-world level design that allows you to reach objectives by different paths, depending on your strengths. Most of the abilities themselves don’t feel like much of anything special, as things like enhanced strength, repair skill, the ability to move objects or kill with your mind, and even resurrect the dead to fight for you have all appeared in plenty of games lately. That, combined with being rewarded for picking up literally any piece of useful gear or actual trash thanks to a cartoonish recycling system that lets you turn even old banana peels into raw materials for manufacturing weapons and upgrades, made me eager to turn over every metaphorical rock on Talos. I enjoyed uncovering how that history unfolded in bits and pieces gleaned from news articles and tidbits on the brief loading screens. It’s an impressively fleshed-out universe, built around an alternate history of the space race that somehow led to an elaborate orbital station, complete with artificial gravity, where touchscreen computers exist side by side with film projectors and rotary telephones. There’s so much storytelling treasure to uncover here, ranging from squabbles among co-workers to more personal notes like a scrapped proposal speech, Dungeons & Dragons character sheets, and even hilariously terrible in-universe science-fiction novel snippets. Between terminals containing all sorts of emails, well-acted audio logs, and thoughtful environmental storytelling, developer Arkane has done a fantastic job of making this bizarre place feel lived-in long before I ever met another living human. “The most interesting stories were the smaller ones I came across, those of the people who lived on Talos before, during, and after it was attacked by aliens.
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