Prey

Arkane’s player-steered formula takes an alien turn.

- Matt Cabral

According to Prey’s lead designer Ricardo Bare, Arkane Studios’ reset of the 2006 alien shooter is “a first person science-fiction action game where players use their wits, weapons and a bunch of really cool mind bending abilities to survive on a space station that’s been overrun by a mysterious species of aliens”.

An even clearer description, though, might be: it’s an Arkane game. “It has that Arkane feel to it,” Bare continues. As fans of the studio’s Dishonored are well aware, that “feel” can come from slowing time, stabbing a dude in the neck and escaping as a possessed rat. Or, as Bare says, “a stew of cool mechanics that all interact with each other.”

Based on our behind-closed-doors demo of Prey, that stew is not only on the menu once more, it’s boiling over in a tasty froth of fresh, sci-fi flavored ingredients. The hands-off presentation begins with protagonist Morgan Yu, who lives on the space station Talos 1, discovering all hell’s broken loose in the main lobby. It’s the beginning of a very bad day for a man or woman – depending on your choice – who already serves as the key subject in a series of morally questionable human experiments.

In plain sight

Inky-black, spidery menaces called Mimics scatter, and Yu swipes at them with a wrench. Identifying these wraith-like threats isn’t easy though, as they’re can take the form of nearby objects. Tinged with paranoia, Yu swings wildly at everything in his path – office chairs, cargo trunks, trash cans – that could potentially be an evil extraterrestrial in disguise.