I’ve never seen a game be this relaxed about itself, and it’s a huge joy. “Oh, what’s in this box? Oh, a thing that means I can now scan and track enemies. I’ve gained super-important new skills that change how I approach the game while thinking I was just off investigating an interesting tunnel off the main path. The real question is whether you want it. And when you find it, it’s not some grand gesture or achingly scripted sequence - it just is. It’s a fair way in, how far entirely dependent upon how much you focus on the main quest beats and how good you are at not being distracted by intriguing-looking side routes and side-quests. What’s incredible is the nonchalance with which this ability is eventually introduced. You’ll know this, because it’s impossible to have avoided that at some point in the game you’re going to be able to turn into a coffee mug. Prey makes big progressive steps forward by giving you new equipment or abilities. Which all leads toward the overarching tone of Stumbling Upon. But dig in a little deeper and you might find extra exploring and improvisation allows you early access anyway. Here the Metroidvania kicks in, with the game often blocking progress in one area of one section by something you realise you’re not yet equipped to handle. Despite always feeling like a first-person action game, it offers a far more RPG-like collection of ongoing quests to complete, and despite the seeming restriction of taking place in just one location, it's a massively broad and unfolding setting in which you have a remarkable level of freedom to explore where you wish. However, it took me literally hours to start believing that it really was as open and freeform as it undeniably is. Having deliberately avoided reading previews and watching footage, I was first and most surprised to learn Prey doesn’t take place in a corridor. Prey is unquestionably built out of the bricks of a dozen other classic games (think System Shock, BioShock, Deus Ex, Metroid Prime), but it’s put them together in a unique pattern that, for the first half at least, kept surprising me. The next thing to forget is the small matter of how you’ve played games for the last decade or so. And you’ll be shooting far less often than you could have expected. There are no hokey tribal powers, instead an ever-growing pile of hokey scifi powers. This is a game in which you play either a female or male Morgan Yu, a research scientist on a space base, which has been infested with a shape-shifting black-goo alien evil. This isn’t a sequel, nor a remake, nor a sister-game. It is, frankly, ridiculous that it has the same name. The first thing to forget is the original Prey. It is also a game for which, delightfully, you’re going to have to shake off a lot of habits and assumptions. Prey is, I’m so pleased to report, a truly fantastic game.
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