The game wants you to define your Morgan by completing select side-quests that require moral decisions. Again, these are effective in creating a sense that Talos I was a real, functioning place where people worked and lived together, but the abundance of mundane notes makes reading them a chore, and overall they feel like filler for an overarching narrative that's stretched thin.Ī key part of Prey's story involves presenting conflicting evidence about Morgan's personality before the memory loss, specifically her intent for Talos I and her contingency for a Typhon outbreak. Hidden amongst all the emails and loose papers strewn around environments is the occasional meaningful exchange-like a group arranging a Dungeons & Dragons game complete with character build sheets, a multi-part treasure hunt, details of shifts in Morgan's personality during the Neuromod testing, or theories on the strange abilities the Typhon exhibit. Emails are mostly the kind of thing you'd expect a bunch of coworkers to be contacting each other about: complaining about colleagues, reminding each other about best practices in the workplace, or explaining why that door you really need to get through is locked. Smaller tales involving the people stationed on Talos I can be found by reading emails at computer terminals, and although they provide a little more to latch onto, by and large it's all similarly forgettable. In Prey, however, those stories are limited to either 'people were here, Typhon appeared, killed everyone, knocked over furniture, and blew holes in things' or 'Typhon were being experimented on here, they got out, knocked over furniture, and destroyed all the expensive science stuff.' A space station ruined by a catastrophic event and the hubris of its leaders is evocative in itself, but this is just the outline of events, and without more color Prey's world reveals itself to be vapid and lacking in depth. Good immersive sims-like BioShock and Dishonored 2-weave stories into their environments. Nevertheless, the lack of variety provides little incentive to stop and admire your surroundings beyond the initial few hours. Logically, the lack of variety makes sense-it's an installation designed to house people that do science, not a funfair. Otherwise, the place is comprised of typical living quarters, office areas, and an abundance of science labs in various states of disarray. Talos I, however, maintains a consistent aesthetic throughout its various areas, breaking the uniformity of its visual design only for the Arboretum, where lush vegetation, towering trees, and snaking vines are entangled with cold space station architecture. Video game worlds are often designed on the same principles as amusement parks, with zones supporting unique themes for variety.

Together with the luminescent blue computer screens and neon stylings of other futuristic technology, Talos I has a distinct visual identity, but it's one that grows tiresome. It has the deep red furnishings and gleaming gold frame of a baroque hotel but this is abstracted against the blackness of space, visible through giant glass windows. With its fusion of art-deco stylings and utilitarian design, Talos I is initially very striking.

Prey quickly loosens its grip on this narrative thread, allowing it to drift into the background in favour of environmental storytelling that shifts the focus to Talos I itself. But sadly, that opportunity is largely wasted. It's an opportunity to tell a twisting, paranoia-fuelled story that forces you to second-guess your own character. Prey subverts this with an early game twist that lays the groundwork for players to scrutinise their agency in the moment, to question the motivations of characters as they appear, and re-evaluate the impact they're having throughout. In the ending of Irrational's BioShock, the revelation surrounding this phrase re-contextualises the events of the entire game to deliver a commentary on player agency.

Prey's opening is its most memorable part, largely due to its own 'Would you kindly' moment, and the promise of what it could mean. During the removal process, the memory of a user is rolled back to its pre-installation state, and since the game begins shortly after some mods are ripped out of her brain, Morgan-and by proxy, the player-starts as an amnesiac. She was also the primary test subject for them, hot-swapping Neuromods in and out of her brain with reckless abandon. Morgan was involved in the creation of Neuromods, a technology derived from the Typhon that allows humans to augment their abilities. Set in the year 2032, Prey casts the player as Morgan Yu, a scientist that finds herself-or himself-trapped on Talos I, a space station overrun by a race of highly intelligent aliens called the Typhon. By clicking 'enter', you agree to GameSpot's

Prey gameplay