Arkane Austin's System Shock-Inspired Prey (2017) Reboot

I found a chamber I filled with stuff and did that with. The question is, are the resources gained > than the resources spent?

Metal never stopped being a bottleneck for me, every single scrap I could find was being turned straight into bullets. Finished the game with something like 100 exotic materials and 5 metal. That necropsy skill turns out not to be a great investment for a gun-based build. I suspect it’s there for players who rely on Typhon mods.

As for the satellite, it’s not a mandatory mission in any sense. (I didn’t find Nightmares to be anything but a minor nuisance). That said, some hints of increasing specificity behind spoilers:

  • You can get in with no skills at all

  • Do you have a way to interact with anything on the other side of the door?

  • There’s an item that can push buttons remotely

  • The door opening button is visible through a little slot. Shoot the button with a crossbow.

I’m 8 hours in now and it’s just not grabbing me at all. It’s especially disappointing as I’m a huge fan of the System Shock games. I don’t know if I’ve just chosen very poorly with my upgrade points, but I haven’t found any that seem to help much yet. I do have the ability to fabricate more, but resources seem relatively scarce and I’m finding that exploration has a pretty high cost in terms of ammo and health so farming for upgrades doesn’t seem practical either.

I’m really bummed out I’m not enjoying this more. It seems like something that would be right up my alley.

Part of what is frustrating me about the game is that it’s clear from the distribution of resources that it doesn’t want to be a shooter, but I don’t feel like I have any other viable options. I can’t really sneak past enemies or hide from them once they’ve been alerted and I don’t have any means of dispatching/neutralizing enemies aside from guns/grenades/melee.

When I encounter an enemy, it seems like the only thing I can do is either attack, or run back to a loading point.

Also: god I wish they’d tone down the enemy respawns.

Hmm… Except for a few scripted occasions, I’m pretty sure respawns only happen when you change areas. So the respawns really should be a non-issue; the first time through an area should just have the initial spawns and be the hard part. After that you’ll already know the layout and have a clear mission you’re trying to achieve in that area. Which should make it a lot easier to just achieve that specific objective while avoiding enemies.

Are you constantly leaving and re-entering the same areas, rather than entering an area and then thoroughly exploring it in one go?

I don’t know about “constantly” but several times I’ve felt like I needed to retreat to a previous area because I didn’t have the equipment/resources/skills to deal with a situation, or to use new skills to try and access places I hadn’t been able to get to before.

Respawning aside, it certainly felt like the game intended me to do this, with the open hub layout.

You’re absolutely supposed to revisit areas, but the revisits should be very different in nature. This is why the respawns never bothered me. I can see it’d really be frustrating if you can’t clear the area out the first time around, and have to retreat and waste resources fighting the “same” enemies without getting much in return.

So I don’t know what the root cause could be :( The game is unforgiving about combat early on, but it shouldn’t be so hard that you’re completely driven out from the areas accessible from the lobby.

Yeah, I don’t know what’s going on with this… I have no problem with System Shock 2 or Bioshock or most other games, but even on Easy I’m barely struggling to get by with this. I’m currently in the maintenance tunnels, but I have very little health, and no ammo except for the little Nerf crossbow.

Maybe I just need to find a trainer or something… the story itself is pretty interesting.

I’m not sure why you are having problems. Early on I took the upgrades that increase my health, gave me more healing from medpacks (huge increase in first level) and increase from recycling, then increased weapons damage. It’s also pretty easy to hide from many enemies. There are vents all over the place which are great to hide in, and they will eventually lose interest. Mimics, the most common enemy are easy to gloo and wrench. You can also gloo phantoms, then run and hide. You don’t have to kill everything and shouldn’t try until you get stronger. It’s also easier to kill them if you duck in a room, then hit/shoot them from the side as they come door. Early on you have to pick your battles, later on you can pretty much take on anything. Also use turrets to your advantage, a couple of them will kill mimics, and distract phantoms while you attack.

Yeah, I dunno. Maybe the problem is that I didn’t upgrade the health packs, which probably would dan’ helped some. But I haven’t had much luck even with the glue/wrench combo if there’s more than one enemy to deal with, or if I encounter a phantom.

I can’t recall the last time I’ve had such difficulty with a game. Maybe I’ll just delete it and write the purchase off as a loss.

Sorry if these are stupid questions, just trying to puzzle out what this could be about.

  • You do have a shotgun by now, right? A single standard phantom should just require a couple of shotgun hits, not be a desperate fight to the death.
  • Are you keeping your suit fixed up, or letting it fall all the way to 0?
  • Are you taking advantage of free health/suit refills from operators?

I’ve got a shotgun, but currently out of ammo.

I’ve been trying to keep my suit up, but I’m at about 10 at the moment.

Yes, I’ve been taking advantage of operators when available, but things don’t seem to last long once I’ve filled up.

I played on Hard and didn’t really have much difficulty. Did you take the Typhon “bomb” ability - the very first one Alex tells you to get? It’s quite powerful, especially if you upgrade it. Ammo was scarce, but I never ever made any. I made Neuromods almost exclusively. I used the wrench and Typhon powers enough that the little ammo I found was sufficient for when I needed to use guns.

It is really interesting to hear how you struggle. I wish I could see you play. Are you using vents or roundabout ways to avoid enemies? I almost never fought any enemies until mid game. And I did not use any powers either. Just always sneak, keep out of sight and look for places where the gloo gun will let you get access too. Otherwise I really have no clue why you are struggling. I have never been engaged when I did not want to be except a few mimics here and there and running and hiding is always an option as well.

Same here. I played on nightmare and my experience was like night and day compared to yours. It was manageable at the start and downright easy when I finished the game. I only played with human powers fwiw.

One thing I’d recommend is to get the recycler power asap and then do the quests related to the fabricating plans for neuromods - once you get that you can quickly make a few until a follow up quest pops up - this one’s a little harder but if you manage to do it you’re set. I probably made about 40 neuromods in my run, maybe more. Ended up maxing the entire human tree by the time I was done.

As for dealing with difficulty - firearms I and II, stealth attacks, weapon upgrades, combat focus - these skills make the game significantly easier. You’ll kill enemies faster and save a ton of ammo in the process.

Other than that - are you playing with a gamepad or a mouse?

Raf Colantonio has left Arkane. Recently, he was in charge of Prey with Harvey Smith handling Dishonored in Lyon, but Smith recently moved back to Austin while the team in France were working on the Dishonored standalone title.

The last 18 years have been an amazing adventure - from starting Arkane in 1999, to making our first game, Arx Fatalis, to joining ZeniMax Media in 2010 and releasing the Dishonored series and Prey to critical acclaim - it is time for me to step out to spend some time with my son and reflect on what is important to me and my future.

I’ve had the opportunity to work with some of the best and brightest people in the industry, and I feel extremely lucky to have been part of this journey with everyone at Arkane.

I’ve lived many magical moments. I’ve also been through the hard times. But, I can say that joining ZeniMax took things to the next level and gave Arkane the opportunity to emerge as a world-class studio. ZenIMax enabled us to make the best games that we’ve ever made. And I know there is even more to come.

ZeniMax strongly believes in Arkane’s ability to make great games, and is committed to supporting the studio. My long-time friend and colleague, Harvey Smith, will oversee the team in Austin and I will be around for as long as necessary to ensure a smooth transition to the new management team in Lyon.

I wish the best to everyone at Arkane, Bethesda, and ZeniMax. Without a doubt I will miss everyone.

As I close, I’d like to thank the Arkane fans for their passion and support. I proudly join them as Arkane Studios’ biggest champion, and I look forward to playing the extraordinary new games the studio is working on.

-Raf Colantonio

Probably a Destiny clone

@robc04 had sent me a Steam message asking for my impressions of Prey (looooong after I’d gone to bed for the night, you crazy bastard :P) so I thought I’d put them here for him as well as others that may also be on the fence. Spoiler free is my intention; let me know if you feel like there is anything that should be blurred out and I’ll happily comply.

To start at the top, it’s real good. I am just loving the immersion of wandering around this game’s world and exploring the backstory via emails, recorded audio logs, and other (often clever) bits of info you can find. It’s got a really nice blend of BioShock, System Shock, Dues Ex, and other games that have done this stuff in that regard, and it does it at least as well as those games, with really, honestly, interesting stuff to pick up on. Great setting, great characters, actually intriguing tale so far.

The “RPG” mechanics are very System Shock or Dues Ex HR here, and I mean that in the best possible way. If I’d seen screens like these at any point before it came out it would have been a day one purchase for me. I’m a sucker for stuff like this.

And that’s just the start of it - there are lots more ways to upgrade your character and many and more options for traversal and engagement with enemies. The open nature of the maps is a really well done, some things I thought would work as I tried to “cheese” the system only to find out the “system” was a lot more pliable than I had assumed. Such as a nasty enemy I tried to juke around to get at whatever it might be guarding only to have it actually hunt me down for several terrifying minutes in another part of the level. Thankfully it finally gave up and wandered back to where I found it. Just amazing. So far (and I’m honestly only a few hours in - maybe 3 or so) there has been a wider variety of enemies than I expected, too, and they are all very deadly and entertaining. And creepy.

The game is pretty tense. I’m making my way slowly, doing a lot of back tracking because on Normal difficulty I feel like my choices really matter, in terms of how I’m spending my precious skill points I get my hands on, as well as finding as many resources as I can. And how good I am at aiming because man, some of these enemies move quick and bullets seem like precious gems so far. But I’m digging it, it feels right, and every time I boot the game up (please, for the love of God, take the time to rename the start up videos in your game folder to .bak - there are guides around on which 4 files to rename - un-skippable opening videos should be punishable offenses) I just love being in this world. It’s also a real purdy game, too.

Some other aspects I really think are neat include crafting - normally I don’t really click with crafting in games, but I dig the way it’s handled here so far, with blue prints you find to build off of and recycle machines to generate materials from the junk you’ve collected. Additionally, I am a huge fan of numbers being in games, and I really appreciate that my weapons have stats and that I can see how much damage I inflict when I attack something. Every time I play a new mechanic is layered into the game, and it’s a delight just how they are handling that stuff. The tutorial pop-up windows are really gorgeous and informative, for instance.

I only paid $39 for it from the Steam sale, but honestly if I’d paid full price I wouldn’t have thought much about it based on what I’ve seen. It’s a big game (HowLongToBead indicates a bare minimum of 16 hours with 26 being closer to accurate for doing all the side quests as well, and I suspect I’ll hit the low 20’s as I tend to do with stuff like this) and it seems like it would also be fun to play through a second time. Lots of value if it can keep up this level of polish and keep me this entertained.

If someone enjoys titles such as BioShock, Dues Ex, System Shock, and et al. I can’t really recommend this experience enough. So far, early days yet to be fair, but so far it’s really just as good as those titles, and some of the mechanics are done best here from what I can tell.

Thanks Scott! I don’t know how I missed that you replied in this thread. I didn’t even see one of those notifications - aww crap, I had somehow marked this thread muted! I don’t know when or why, it must have been an accident. It sounds really good. I think I like and dislike some of the same things you do in games like these. I’m normally not a crafting person, so it’s good to hear that you think it is well done.

My main concern I guess is that I think I’ve heard that the enemies get repetitive, but maybe that won’t be an issue.

This sounds like it should be pretty high on my list - ahead of Shadow Warrior 2, Mass Effect Andromeda. Have you played Nier Automata and / or The Surge? Those 2 are probably my other main contenders.