Bethesda was kind enough to invite us to a Prey hands-on preview last week in Los Angeles and also casually interview Richardo Bare (Arkane Studios) who is the Lead Designer on Prey. Prey will be releasing on May 5, 2017 (PS4, XBO & PC) and we already put together some brief impressions last year from a gameplay trailer but now have a better idea of what to expect from the game. Prey looks to be a stylized combination of all the best things from BioShock, Doom and Dishonored in which you play as Morgan Yu defending the space station Talos I from aliens in the year 2032.
For our Prey hands-on preview, we played the beginning of the game – before Talos I is taken over by hostile aliens. We were able to modify our human abilities broken down as scientist, engineer or security. In the final Prey video game, there will also be alien abilities for you to upgrade – these all come in the form of Neuromods which are applied by shooting a needle through your eye. Most of the aliens we fought against were small shadow-like creatures called Mimics as they have the ability to transform into familiar shapes. We casually asked Richardo Bare during our interview if you can ‘mimic a mimic’ and he said yes – stating that later in the game you can use a ‘Psychoscope‘ which is a scientific instrument that will scan aliens and allow you to use their powers.
The visuals for Prey are crisp and stunning – there is an overall tech vibe to the game – especially when interacting with terminals and weapons. You can play as male or female and according to Bare – who you choose doesn’t affect the gameplay but will alter details like family portraits and other visuals. There is some cause-and-effect relationship to Prey as Bare also expressed that end game results can be affected by how you treat Survivors when you encounter them midway through the story.
For those interested in crafting there are ‘Fabrication Stations‘ placed throughout the levels which act as a ‘Super 3D Printer’ to assist in your play-style. Bare mentioned that you can use the Fabrication Stations to adjust to how you would like to play the game – for instance – you can choose to create many shotgun shells if that is your preferred weapon of choice. We had a chance to take advantage of the ‘Gloo Canon’ which can be used as a weapon to freeze enemies in place or to climb walls by making steps out of the weapon’s sticky substance.
Prey has all the right ingredients in place for an intriguing and clever game – much will hinge upon how well the development team at Arkane Studios handles the story and draws you into the events as they unfold.