Prey (2017) Review

PREY (PS4, X-Box One, PC)

Overall Score: 8.5/10

Skin-Crawling Tedium

So I’m a little late to this party, I know. The Prey train left the station a year ago, and I honestly didn’t get this game when it came out because I needed money for Fire Emblem: Echos last year. Probably wasn't the best investment there. There isn’t a ton of new games I care about out right now, though, so I figured I’d take the dive into Arkane Studio’s attempt to reboot this Horror franchise. I'm happy to report that Prey, even though it's just a Bioshock clone wearing Dead Space’s prom dress, is honestly pretty solid.

      Prey was a sleeper hit, everyone thought was dead in the water. It's a reboot of a 2006 game that sadly went into development hell once plans for a sequel were panned. Ten years later though, Bethesda reveals that Prey is not dead after all. Arkane Studios of Dishonored fame took charge of the project, and right off the bat looked insanely different from the original. I was intrigued by what I saw, if not because I just really wanted something to fill the void left by the death of Dead Space (R.I.P Visceral Games). This version of Prey was developed to be a spiritual successor to a game called System Shock, and the use of environments, enemies, and similar weapons call back to System Shock, the original Prey, and Bioshock.
       In Prey, you take the role of Morgan Yu, a male or female scientist (your choice) who wakes up on a space station called Talos I with serious amnesia. Alien lifeforms called Typhon have taken over and are killing everyone. Morgan sets out to destroy the Typhon, escape, and bring to light some shady dealings happening on Talos I prior to its downfall.

       Prey is a Survival Horror game it really delivers on that label. This is one of the only games that has encapsulated the terror of having a spider in your bedroom and losing it under the bed. The utter rage and fear one feels lighting your house on fire to get to the little bastard are up front and center here upon encountering enemies called Mimics. These spider-like beings can look like anything in the environment and will pop out and attack at any time. Once, one took the form of a sticky note I was trying to read. A couple hours after that, I walked into a room filled with literal dozens of sticky notes and I almost had a mental breakdown after throwing my controller in the toilet. I can never look at sticky notes and coffee cups the same way again.
       Also true to the Horror Survival label is inventory management. Prey features a Resident Evil style inventory system and ammo is extremely scarce. An intuitive crafting system allows the player to collect materials from the world and turn them into little crafting cubes in a really satisfying fashion via a rescyling machine. From there the player must take the cubes to another machine and craft ammo and weapons from there. Its a few button presses, but watching these items appear from thin air is weirdly satisfying.
    Luckily,  your crafted ammo will never go to waste. Or it will if you are crazy jumpy like I am. There are a decent variety of enemies to fight aside from Mimics. These range from humanoid Phantoms to a Hulking creature called The Nightmare that hunts you for a limited time at the worst moments. The enemies are fun, but you learn how to beat them fairly easily, and they soon become easy to ignore if you give Morgan the correct skills.
   

    Aside from the Sci-Fi inspired weapons, that are honestly a tad forgettable, Morgan can use Typhon abilities in combat. After he/she is injected with Typhon DNA, Morgan has a whole other set of skill trees that can build his/her skills. Elemental powers, or transforming into objects like a Mimic are just two of the options available. These abilities are a blast to experiment with. By the end, you will know what was useful and what wasn't and that will make a second playthrough of the game all the more fun.
       Talos I is beautifully crafted, but the map is not as big as you would expect.  That said, it's filled with little nooks and crannies to explore. It's clear Arkane put a lot of time into the world building since there are endless amounts of audio and texts logs to find and take in. Segments that take Morgan into space are fun, and zooming around outside the base feels so real I expected to see George Clooney and Sandra Bullock flying around out there. What music is there has an 80’s synth feel to it, but a lot of the game doesn't use music. Which I feel is a great tool for putting someone on edge.
   The story of Prey is fun and eerie even with a few hiccups. There are plenty of side missions to pick up and do, but those were pretty one dimensional and I never felt drawn to do some of the late game ones due to an influx of bad backtracking. Backtracking really bogs down the experience and load times that last over a minute become tedious as well. By the end of the game, everything just becomes a bit of a grind, with very little to keep you going except for the truly cool twist at the end.
     All that said, It's clear that Prey wasn’t a rushed product like some franchise reboots can be. Remember Duke Nukem: Forever? Prey isn't even close to that bad. Prey's story is intriguing enough to keep you going, even with backtrackinging. The variety in combat will make Bioshock fans happy, and the terrifying enemies will make Dead Space fans even happier. Give me a little bit more variety in missions, a bigger world, and shorter load times, and I will be happy in the sequel. Bethesda and Arkane know what they’re doing though, so here's hoping the second attempt at Prey 2 doesn't fall through.

Seriously though, coffee mugs and sticky notes are not to be trusted.