First off before I begin, this game isn’t a sequel to the original prey, Bethesda Softworks owns the IP and decided to slap the name on this game. So with that said, what is Prey?
Prey 2017 is a spiritual successor to system shock 2. while it has got nothing to do with that game, the way that the game plays, skill points, exploration, need your wits to survive.
The review will have some minor spoilers.
You play as a character called Morgan, you wake up and go to the lab to do some tests, during that, things go wrong and the room gets gashed and you wake up again back in your room. However this time things are different, after you put on your suit, you find your first weapon, the Wrench.
There are many ways to play the game, for example, a locked door, you can find the keycode, hack it, or search for an alternative way in.
There are enemies in the game, probably combat isn’t the main strength of the game, however, you don’t need to fight everything. and early on, its not really advised. Stealth is really powerful, and there are stealth skills that really help. regarding the skill trees, you have hacking (really useful) repair, lifting heavy objects, gunsmith (allowing you to upgrade weapons past level 1.
Once you reach your office, your in one of the most useful places in the game, here there are two pieces of equipment that really helps a tonne. One being the recycler. This breaks down stuff you don’t need to converts items to cubes, (different types) which you can then use on the fabricator, once you find the plans, you can craft stuff like weapons, ammo, medkits, etc. (so it really pays off to look everywhere. (and yes that does involve a bit of backtracking.
I haven’t completed the game yet, still pretty far in. Now for the negatives, the game suffers from some very bad bugs, (effects all releases) the steam version has been patched to fix some bugs, while the console versions will be patched sometime this week.
One bug breaks saves, (fixed in the PC release) other bug that still been investigated is items getting removed from the inventory. (no word on when that one will be fixed, but the devs are aware of it) (again present in all versions)
So the game got rushed out of the door before it was suitably tested. Which is a shame, as the game is good.
I say that if you liked SS2 / bioshock, (but closer to SS2) like survival horror games, this game is for you. I loved SS2, and Prey is a very worthy spiritual successor of it. It’s just a shame that the game is crppled by some annoying bugs, and lack of advertising.
I personally would give it an 8, it’s not without flaws. and some major bugs are still present. But it is a big game, plenty to do. So worth picking up? most certainly if you like this style of game.