What difficulty should i play on

[JerryWasHere]

So just got the game. Do not know a ton about, (and that is the way i want to keep it) but not sure what difficulty to start with. I have a decent experience with shooters, and some survival horror, Dead Space and Bioshock. Should i start with Hard with all survival mode options or normal?

[nimue]

start with normal difficulty, if you want to change it later, then change it.

[Lar Dass]

Normal

[Greb]

Nightmare. The game is easy even on that difficulty, especially once you reach the halfway point. If you go for anything easier, you'll just end up with an easy early game and an easy end game, making the experience rather dull - although if you don't care for challenge just play on Story mode or something.

Play with Traumas on, too - Medical Operators remove them, making them less annoying than they really should be, but they add an interesting layer of depth to fighting enemies anyway. The game is very dull without them, in my opinion - feels very much like something is missing, especially on lower difficulties.

Weapon degradation sucks, especially how Prey handles it, so I wouldn't recommend toggling that on. Oxygen is hardly a challenge either - you don't actually need oxygen unless your suit dips below 50% so it's just like normal gameplay until then, and with how common Engineering Operators are it's hard to ever drop below 90 suit integrity anyway unless you make a serious mistake. The game encourages you to carry around oxygen tanks, but not the ones you pick up in the environment, you have to make identical ones at a Fabricator that go into your inventory that take up the same space as a psi hypo (2x1) - Suit Repair Kits do like 45 suit integrity and only occupy a 1x1 slot, rendering the oxygen mechanic mostly just a meme. Not worth toggling on.

But yeah, try either Story or Nightmare mode respectively, depending on if you're looking for an interactive movie or a video game. Unless you're doing gimmicky themed type playthroughs like wrench only no stealth no neuromods or something, then maybe one of the middle difficulties might be worth playing on.

[JerryWasHere]

thanks, i did not realize you could change the difficulty after you started.

[nimue]

Originally posted by JerryWasHere:

thanks, i did not realize you could change the difficulty after you started.

survival mode options you can't change after the game starts (turn on/off), but you can change the difficulty.

[Savage Sloth]

Play on normal and skip the survival options for now. It's a stunning game for the atmosphere and story alone. As mentioned, you can always increase the difficulty halfway through.

[Breach]

I wouldn't recommend Nightmare for a first play-through, just because Prey doesn't rely on typical FPS mechanics. Plus, Nightmare isn't that easy at the beginning unless you like save scumming. Once you get used to Prey, Nightmare is the way to go, it's actually pretty easy in the 2nd part of the game.

[PoolHopel]

Don't show your "abilities" to survivors. They will aggro and you will fail the mission. I failed 1 mission this way and am very dissappointed. I'm way past going back and doing it again.

[PoolHopel]

If survivors think you're not human they won't stop trying to kill you.

[$2 Hero]

Easy that way it doesn’t take 50 million wrench hits to kill a squid.

[reck_o]

Nightmare with all traumas enabled. You will really feel like Prey.

[Kubistonek]

Originally posted by sldkfjsldajfdslafkj:

Easy that way it doesn’t take 50 million wrench hits to kill a squid.

difficulty doesn't affect enemy health.
Normal:
Healing Modifier: 100%
Damage Dealt: 100%
Damage Taken: 100%

each step below/above is basically +20% damage taken/-healing

[Crypto Gamer]

The above is untrue.

Difficulty differences in Prey.

Story/Easy/Normal/Hard/Nightmare difficulty:

Damage taken from most sources: 0.1/0.5/1.0/1.4/1.6x

Damage taken from crush and laser sources: 0.4/0.7/1.0/1.2/1.4x

Suit damage received: 0.25/0.25/1.0/1.0/1.0x

Health/psi from consumable items: 2.0/1.2/1.0/0.8/0.8x

Damage dealt by the player: 1.25/1.1/1.0/1.0/0.8x

0.8x or 80% healing recieved means

Psi hypo restores 60 psi on normal but only 60*0.8=48 on hard or nightmare.

Game will auto adjust numbers for the given difficulty.

[Beat Wiz Spider]

Originally posted by Greb:

Nightmare. The game is easy even on that difficulty, especially once you reach the halfway point. If you go for anything easier, you'll just end up with an easy early game and an easy end game, making the experience rather dull - although if you don't care for challenge just play on Story mode or something.

Play with Traumas on, too - Medical Operators remove them, making them less annoying than they really should be, but they add an interesting layer of depth to fighting enemies anyway. The game is very dull without them, in my opinion - feels very much like something is missing, especially on lower difficulties.

Weapon degradation sucks, especially how Prey handles it, so I wouldn't recommend toggling that on. Oxygen is hardly a challenge either - you don't actually need oxygen unless your suit dips below 50% so it's just like normal gameplay until then, and with how common Engineering Operators are it's hard to ever drop below 90 suit integrity anyway unless you make a serious mistake. The game encourages you to carry around oxygen tanks, but not the ones you pick up in the environment, you have to make identical ones at a Fabricator that go into your inventory that take up the same space as a psi hypo (2x1) - Suit Repair Kits do like 45 suit integrity and only occupy a 1x1 slot, rendering the oxygen mechanic mostly just a meme. Not worth toggling on.

But yeah, try either Story or Nightmare mode respectively, depending on if you're looking for an interactive movie or a video game. Unless you're doing gimmicky themed type playthroughs like wrench only no stealth no neuromods or something, then maybe one of the middle difficulties might be worth playing on.

Hold the phone - what? We can make 02 tanks? Are yeh gaslighting, chummer? I JUST nullified the goo monsters after 88 hours on Hard -> Normal, all three Traumas, and NEVER found an "oxygen tank" plan.

Was that patched out? (fwiw I only got into this game a week ago, I know they patched jams and relaods but didn't see an'thing aout crafting oxy tanks.)

[Sami Gentleman]

Difficult, it's a pretty easy game