Prey is a first-person shooter with stealth elements and focus on exploration. It’s not a sequel to the previous game of same name, more like a reboot that took only small things from the original.

Pros:
+ Engaging story
+ Multiple ways to solve problems
+ Well-hidden secrets
+ Interesting combat system that uses the environment

Cons:
- A lot of needless backtracking due to plot twists
- Minor bugs, e. g. flying enemies can go through the wall and get stuck on the other side

The game takes place on a space station in dire times. Some experiments had gone awfully wrong and now the station is invaded by aliens and most of the crew is dead. You take on a role of Morgan Yu, the lead scientist behind those experiments, but now an amnesiac with a big wrench in his hand and a great thirst for knowledge. It’s up to you to figure out what happened on the station and how to survive it. Most of the story-telling is done via audio-logs and emails, that you collect while exploring the station. While it may sound boring, this game actually does it right. Each text is short and audio logs can be listened to during the normal gameplay, but most of all the information you get in each location is interconnected, it’s either an event described from different perspectives or some character being present in multiple messages. So, in the end it feels like you’re a detective reconstructing events from witness statements.

It’s a mix of stealth and first-person shooter, but it feels more like progression from former to latter. You start off weak and low on supplies, forced to hide or evade enemies instead of taking them head on. It’s very tense at first and you have to use the environment to deal with enemies, like luring them near explosives or locking them in rooms. But after you collect enough supplies and upgrade your weapons you can shoot your way through anything without much effort. Though the game understands this and tries to throw more harder enemies at you. The gameplay lays heavily on exploration, there are multiple paths through each level and levels themselves are constructed in a metroidvania style. There are a lot of locked rooms, that you won’t be able to get into on your first visit, though certain tools allow you to get there sooner.

One of such tools is a unique weapon called GLOO cannon, not only can it be used to attack enemies, but it’s also useful for traversal. You can build ledges, that allow you to climb walls and find secrets, or skip parts of the level with enemies you’re not prepared to fight yet. It opens up a lot of possibilities and makes exploration way more fun than it could have been without it. There’s also another thing to note about the game, is its’ unique enemies, mimics. Mimics can transform themselves into regular objects and attack you from behind when you least expect it. Each encounter with them feels like a game of cat and mouse, it provides the game with so many memorable situations and thrilling encounters.

Visually it’s good, but it could have been better. While environments look realistic and have lots of small details to them, human characters are somewhat out of style. They look and move cartoonishly and it makes them seem out of place. Though, you won’t meet many humans during your playthrough, it still sticked out to me whenever I saw them. As for the music, I can’t say I remember any of it since my playthrough, so it’s mostly functional. It does its’ job in creating a tense atmosphere, but doesn’t stick in your head for long. Voice acting is ok, there aren’t any great dramatic performances, but it sounds believable enough to perceive NPCs as real human beings.

Specs: Intel Core i5-7300HQ, 12GB RAM, NVIDIA GTX 1050 4GB.

It runs at 60 FPS at 900p resolution on High Settings with occasional drops to 40, usually during the initial couple of minutes after loading a save or travelling to a new location.

Prey is a unique game, that I recommend everyone to try. The difficulty can be easily adjusted even during gameplay, which makes it accessible even for casual gamers. Its’ atmosphere and interesting locations will surely pull you in for hours and hours.