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

Well I’m glad these guys keep up the system shocks as they are far and away the best at it and have the production values to boot, but I would still like somebody to explain why things are turning into chairs.

Because they can! ;)

Launch date set: May 5th.

Nice trailer. One thing I like is when you have to show cool stuff that might be spoilers, you should show it in fast flashes so that even though they’re technically spoilers, the human mind doesn’t really have time to let the image sink in, and it usually doesn’t transfer from short term memory to long term. So when I play the game, I won’t remember any of the fast flashes spoilers in that trailer.

Of course, that whole thing sometimes falls apart when people on the internet start analyzing trailers frame by frame and posting analysis, and other people read the analysis and come into threads and then say “what? That’s not a spoiler, that was in the trailer. What? We’re not even allowed to spoil things we already know from the trailer anymore?”

(That was directed at @krayzkrok and his assertion that the first Star Trek Beyond trailer gave away something key that happens near the beginning of the movie, something I didn’t catch onto because, flashes of fast images, etc. :-P)

May huh. Gives a little over a month for Mass Effect. Should be fine.

I hope Bethesda has their marketing ready, or this will perform worse than Dishonored 2.

Shodan is not a villain which can be replicated easily, and despite their powers, the aliens in Prey look kind of bland (no striking Big Daddies but plenty of those blobs from the cancelled XCOM shooter).

Since mimics can be destroyed with a single swing of the wrench or a pistol shot, what is their appeal beyond a quick jump scare? They look like tiny, annoying enemies who have Corvo’s possession ability for inanimate objects.

I don’t think Arkane will suddenly discover how to tell a great story. They can create exceptional worlds but they simply fail to implement compelling narratives or characters. Regardless, System Shock 2 was an amazing game for more than just level design and Shodan. The desperate hunt for resources made enemies feel more threatening and added a valuable risk reward dynamic. They attempted this with Bioshock but that lack of resources only lasted for the first level. Afterwards, you had more resources than you knew what to do with.

Some videos! Still wish this game was called something else.

You’re are assuming from a limited number of gameplay videos from relatively early in the game that this is always so. Your assumption may be wrong.

I’ll be honest, I was one of the people that saw the Prey 2 demo at E3 and was really psyched about that game. Now, I may get this and I may enjoy it, but them using the same name has left a bad taste in my mouth. Zenimax burned through all my Bethesda good will a while back (and the somewhat miserable Fallout 4 DLC) and I have a hard time separating the bullshit they pulled on Prey 2 from the game it is now.

I saw it at that year’s PAX. Goddamn, it looked good.

Yeah, it really did. One of the biggest let-downs of recent years.

Ooh! I found a sample!

Zeninmax are unbelievable assholes, but Arkane is not at fault here and I do expect their Prey to be brilliant in its own right.

I would still love to play Human Head version though.

Good to know I’m not alone In that feeling.

Unfortunately, Zenimax finds itself in charge of studios I hold in high regard: id, Arkane, Bethesda, and Machine Games. Would be nice if they were less scummy.

Arkane have cut a number of hardcore features from the game, including weapon degradation, the trauma system, and an oxygen limit when exploring space, but they might patch them back in post-launch.

They’re definitely going for the whole Bioshock art-deco look, too.

Weapon degradation is just annoying - and to use that word, “unrealistic”. No weapon is going to degrade over the time period a game like this takes place over. I’m all for resources that a player has to manage but this isn’t one of them. But that’s just me, so IMO, no loss here.

It’s definitely a bit of a Vegemite mechanic. As a huge fan of Breath of the Wild and Far Cry 2, I can’t get enough of it, but I can understand why others hate it. Still, it was a System Shock 2 gameplay choice that I really appreciated in that it forced me into some really challenging situations which would have never happened if my only concern was ammo.

I seem to recall it not being as stupid in system shock 2 as it is in modern games though. For some reason games like Dead Island, fire emblem and now Breath of the wild got the crazy idea that gamers enjoyed having their items break in 10 hits.

I liked how it was done in FarCry 2 - find rusty old gun, it jams and explodes, use freshly minted new one - works perfectly for a long, long time. Dying Light was also ok with it, early rusty stuff broke quickly, but later in the game weapons lasted me hours.
But it is not really a mechanic I would miss tbh, same with oxygen being limited. I can take it or leave it.