Prey (2017 Edition) [PC]

[swaaye]

Anyone playing the game? I'm to 14 hours on it so far.

No spoilers here....

It's my first Cryengine game not built by Crytek and that's interesting in itself. It runs very smoothly maxed out on a 980M. I've had no crashes. Visuals aren't exactly leading edge but they are nice and crisp. I assume Viktor Antonov was involved because it has the Half Life 2 / Dishonored architectural feel to it. This makes it strangely reminiscent of Bioshock too. Nice SMAA T2X anti-aliasing that is superior to the the glitchy TXAA of Dishonored 2. I wish the lighting/shadowing was fancier.

The gameplay is highly refined RPG FPS as one might expect from the company. I get a Dishonored + System Shock + Bioshock + Portal vibe from all of it. There is a lot of story to discover, mystery, various characters, and tons of approaches you can take. It is essentially open world because you can go almost wherever you like on the station (or outside of it!). Lots of exploration opportunities. Arkane really covered all the bases for the gameplay expectations with this genre IMO. Love the weird alien monsters they've come up with. It's not horror but it sure is creepy.

Complaints I have might be the music being too much in your face sometimes. It tells you too much that you're "IN DANGER!" lol I turned the volume down on that. There's also a lack of options to turn off HUD and objective marker stuff, which is bizarre because Dishonored 2 is loaded with such options. Also no FOV adjustment, something else Dishonored 2 has. The stock FOV is fine for TV of course, but slightly irritating on desktop PC. It does however have quick saves, thankfully.

An interesting problem I came across is on Steam, old Prey and new Prey install to the same directory! Reported that to Steam and they responded that the developer has been made aware of it.

 

[Malo]

An interesting problem I came across is on Steam, old Prey and new Prey install to the same directory! Reported that to Steam and they responded that the developer has been made aware of it.

omg that's funny. Shouldn't Valve/Steam be verifying the installation folder of a game submitted to it so it doesn't use an existing one?

 

[Kyyla]

Its on my wishlist for sure. Dishonored 2 was great.

 

[Clukos]

Its on my wishlist for sure. Dishonored 2 was great.

This is more Bioshock than Dishonored but it's pretty good so far. Played around 20 hours and the atmosphere and general vibe of the game is amazing. Definitely recommending it, but be warned, just like Bioshock it's a bit of a slow burn and you have to invest some time to really "get" it, but boy is it good once you do

 

[warcrow]

This game is so goddamn gooooood!

Ok, so noticed the Black Market achievement is Ultra Rare, so here's a pretty simple guide to all locations. Man, it's worth it for all the Neuromods.

 

[Clukos]

I like the use of SSR in this game, it's still SSR but it's nicely implemented and the fallback (cubemaps) ain't that bad by comparison so the transition from one to another isn't very bad:

That's at 4k with half-res SSR, which is the easiest way to get a 60fps lock at that res.

 

[RancidLunchmeat]

Honestly, I really wanted to get this game but the reviews I've read (while trying to stay away from any spoilers) all mention that it's rather difficult.

 

[swaaye]

Honestly, I really wanted to get this game but the reviews I've read (while trying to stay away from any spoilers) all mention that it's rather difficult.

If you've played something like Bioshock before you're good to go. It's just that you're going to run into some really strange creatures that take some thought to deal with. It's definitely not exceptionally difficult though.

 

[RancidLunchmeat]

If you've played something like Bioshock before you're good to go. It's just that you're going to run into some really strange creatures that take some thought to deal with. It's definitely not exceptionally difficult though.

Ahh, Okay.. I'll check it out. I loved Bioshock, one of my all time favorites!

 

[Davros]

Shouldn't Valve/Steam be verifying the installation folder of a game

Doesnt steam let you choose the installation folder (I've always used defaults, but I'm sure its there)

If prey 2 has allready overwritten your original prey game the easiest solution seems to be to re download prey 1 and install it to prey1 folder

 

[Malo]

Doesnt steam let you choose the installation folder (I've always used defaults, but I'm sure its there)

If prey 2 has allready overwritten your original prey game the easiest solution seems to be to re download prey 1 and install it to prey1 folder

Kind of yes. It's not like a regular installer where you choose the folder it installs to. You can have multiple Steam library folders and change the default.

There are probably a few solutions for the users but the point I was trying to make is that Steam indicated it's a developer issue which really it's Valve's for allowing it to happen in the first place.

 

[RancidLunchmeat]

"Developer Issue" is code for being stupid by releasing a game with the same name as a previous unrelated one just because you wanted to keep the IP copyright?

 

[swaaye]

Anyone know which Cryengine this is? Some Wikipedia dude wrote in Cryengine 5 but that seems too new.

 

[swaaye]

"Developer Issue" is code for being stupid by releasing a game with the same name as a previous unrelated one just because you wanted to keep the IP copyright?

I wonder if Arkane or Bethesda was behind it? It's risk reduction. Attach a new IP to an old name in hopes of it selling better. Whatever works I guess. People are definitely talking about it.

Tis a shame that Prey 2 didn't work out. Not that we really knew much about it. The fake CG trailer was neat. A mystery like the original Doom 4.

 

[Malo]

Anyone know which Cryengine this is? Some Wikipedia dude wrote in Cryengine 5 but that seems too new.

From what I've read it's based on version 3.

 

[RancidLunchmeat]

I wonder if Arkane or Bethesda was behind it? It's risk reduction. Attach a new IP to an old name in hopes of it selling better. Whatever works I guess. People are definitely talking about it.

True, but outside of the reviews that have shied me away because they constantly speak of difficulty level, the reviews are overwhelmingly positive for the game in terms of atmosphere and game play, if not cutting edge graphics. I would think they could have come up with some other name for the game as a new IP. Think how confusing Prey 2 is going to be.

 

[swaaye]

True, but outside of the reviews that have shied me away because they constantly speak of difficulty level, the reviews are overwhelmingly positive for the game in terms of atmosphere and game play, if not cutting edge graphics. I would think they could have come up with some other name for the game as a new IP. Think how confusing Prey 2 is going to be.

I wonder if the game did have another name at some point. I think if you play the game, you might start to find the name rather fitting on various levels though. I don't want to spoil anything.

I'm surprised by the quality and scope of it. I had the impression that it was more of a side project for Arkane, but that's not the case.

 

[Davros]

I wonder if Arkane or Bethesda was behind it? It's risk reduction. Attach a new IP to an old name in hopes of it selling better.

I think RancidLunchmeat was referring to the stupidity of archane installing to a folder with the exact same name as the original game
eg:
Prey folder : Steam\SteamApps\common\Prey
Prey 2017 folder : Steam\SteamApps\common\Prey

 

[swaaye]

By the way, I had no idea before this week that "immersive sim" is what people apparently call these games.

 

[swaaye]

I think RancidLunchmeat was referring to the stupidity of archane installing to a folder with the exact same name as the original game
eg:
Prey folder : Steam\SteamApps\common\Prey
Prey 2017 folder : Steam\SteamApps\common\Prey

It is bizarrely stupid. I have a hard time believing they weren't aware of it before launch.