Why Was Prey (2017) So Forgettable? | Extra Punctuation 

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One of the most memorable moments in Prey for me was the room covered in "Not a Mimic" sticky notes.

The only line I remember from the game is: "Don't touch anything without hitting it with a wrench." "Wait! Check the wrench first." "*sigh* He's right." It's a good line.

I personally will never forget Prey because I was gifted it at the same time that I'd been working as an overnight janitor at a college. So for a time my home life was exploring an assortment of unpopulated office spaces while being wary of unusual sounds and movements that would indicate there's a horrible monstrosity waiting to murder me, and my work life was exploring an assortment of unpopulated office spaces while jumping at any perceived unusual sounds and movements for fear of horrible monstrosities waiting to murder me. I only actually found horrible monstrosities one time, but it was a wonderfully coincidental immersion.

The ending to this episode reminds me of my favorite joke: I killed many enemies and won many medals in the war, but do they call me war hero? No. After the war I became a teacher and taught hundreds of kids, but do they call me teacher? No. In retirement I bought a farm and cultivated thousands of acres full of crops, but do they call me farmer? No. But you shag one sheep!

The Reason is called Prey is that Zenimax came down from on high and told Arkane their next original game needed to be called Prey, it didn't matter what it was, it just needed to be called Prey, so they could keep the IP and it wouldn't return to Human Head studios, developers of Prey and Prey 2. The history of Prey 2 is worth researching if you want to feel dirty anytime you ever play something Zenimax has touched

The meme-able moment in prey is when you can't find a password for a computer and it's written on a note under the desk. As a guy who works in IT, it really made me laugh.

Forgettable? I still remember the intro, ending and many of the bits between. Also the foam gun. NOICE game.

Prey really is such a good game that is never talked about. There are a lot of memories of it for me. The first time you take the elevator, tapping on the glass with your wrench to find the person in space, The "Cook", the DnD character sheets you find. There is a lot of love sprinkled throughout the game but you might miss it if you don't take your time.

I had this exact conversation with my friends when they recommended Prey to me about a year ago. I had slept on it when it came out as well, only to discover "what the fuck, this is basically System Shock 2 with a AAA polish budget". Nothing was compromised mechanically, it was rich and in-depth and beautifully designed and open ended. The GLOO gun is one of the best Gravity Gun chasers to come out for an FPS game as well, and the aesthetics of the setting were right up my alley. How come people weren't talking about this game with the same reverence as they do System Shock 2??? I couldn't get it. I'm not sure if I totally agree that Prey lacked a key "memorable" element as the culprit why (personally I did enjoy Alex Yu as a character and the moral complexity in which he's involved with the story as you unravel everything), but I definitely see the logic in it, as Prey does lack a certain degree of bombast. It's a very understated game, it doesn't really get in your face with anything it has, at least nothing on the lines of Andrew Ryan or SHODAN.

The biggest issue was how the game was released, Bethesda was going through its angsty "we hate games media phase" where it refused to give out game release codes before release, and didn't buy adspace on said publications limiting its exposure before release. A lot of reviewers were not incentivised to review it, and being told they had like 24 hours to play and write a review to meet a deadline and most refused. Eventually Bethesda realised their anti-game reviewer policy hurt them and game sales and reversed it. Then comes Prey Mooncrash, they released the DLC the same day they announced it on stage at E3... while all the games media and critics were too busy at E3 to play it, cause they all got backstage passes to see the Cyberpunk 2077 guided demo of two in-game missions. Its weird when you see all the critic reviews on Deathloop, and it by many Arkane fans pales in comparision to Prey or Dishonoured... so why did Deathloop get reviewed so highly when its less memorable and even more generic than Prey, mostly cause none of them remember playing Prey... CAUSE THEY DIDNT! Bethesda didn't give them time to, so they ignored it.

Seems like everyone forgot about the bit where Bethesda canceled the near complete Prey 2 because it "didn't meet their standard" and decided to reboot the Prey name with THIS instead. People who cared about Prey 2006 refused to play this and the people who didnt care about it weren't interested in another reskin of a biohock game that plays like dishonoured.

i think the mimics were actualy pretty good enemies, making you distrustful of your environment even if you cant see anything hostile

The most memorable moment of Prey is the song blaring at full volume while fighting monsters attracted to it. And it's fantastic!

Prey was an amazing game to me, so good even that I played it 10 different times. It was so good in my opinion that whenever I'm looking at the storyline of a game I compare it to how much fun and how in depth Prey was able to make me feel. I loved that game.

One of my all time favourite games. Moment I smashed through the glass I couldn’t believe it as I stayed away from all spoilers. An unforgettable experience and an incredibly under appreciated game

Forgettable? Fuck, I love this game. Haven't played it in going on 2 or 3 years and still remember it very well, especially stuff like your first encounters with specific monsters.

Oh sully Yahtzee everyone remembers passcode "0451", a immersive sim just isn't a true immersive sim if it's 1st passcode isn't 0451

I feel like calling the characters unmemorable or the monsters generic perfectly answers your question as to why people don’t remember it. Humans love stories and love to remember stories but stories need something for the imagination. Can you see many people writing fanfic for prey characters? I can’t. I mean, undertale doesn’t have too many flaws to latch onto, but its writing is so memorable regardless. People can project lives upon the characters outside of canon, too. There’s room for imagination.

It wasn’t forgettable at all - it was just under appreciated. It was easily one of the best games of the year.

It's one of my top 5 favorite and most memorable games I have no idea why more people don't play it

Ah yes, Prey 2017's ending. To me it was one of the most ballsy design choices I've ever seen in a AAA game. For the mostly everyone who didn't get obsessed with Prey's lore, the ending was pretty much designed to appear like the dumbest 'we wasted your time, none of that actually happened' ending UNLESS you paid a lot of attention to various small details and thought about the philosophical questions the main story was bringing up. This is the sort of thing that developers usually put in for their own sakes, and Prey is the only AAA game I know of that possibly damaged its own reception because of this desire.

I thought Prey was pretty memorable, though I'm the type of player who explores obsessively and reads everything. It might not have technically have done much new, but it is still a very unique game. There aren't many other games that mix old-school System Shock/Deus Ex immersive sim design with modern polish. I loved the level design, the GLOO gun, the crew backstories, and even the crafting. I did feel the gameplay and story completely fell apart 2/3 of the way through, which soured me on replaying it. Exploring the first time was a joy, though.

I'm so glad Preys being mentioned again. It's one of my favourite games ever, despite my hatred for scary games. It's a masterpiece of writing level design and what I call, 'adaptive horror' I.e if you play with the mimic sounds off in a well lit room, it won't scare you at all, apart from maybe 1 scene hidden in a projector screen somewhere. On the other hand If you play in a dark room with high sound it will scare you shitless TLDR Prey is amazing, go play it now

Oddly enough, I LOVED this game. It was very intelligent, the gameplay was incredibly creative and interesting, and the theme raised so many interesting philosophical questions. I think Yatzee's third theory is the correct one - there simply aren't any memorable characters in the game. Without memorable characters and quotes, you don't have much to meme with.

Prey 2017 is one of my favorite games of all time. It's a shame it was lost in the mix due to a clouded and controversial release but I loved it when I finally got around to playing it and I think it's a game that you get out what you put into it

Imo the biggest "flaw" of Prey was it's enemy design. The mimics were really cool with their spindly, stretchy, amorphous black masses... but then every other enemy was a big humanoid black mass or somesuch of lesser impact. I quite enjoyed Prey, but it's hard to vividly recall an entire race of black amorphous blobs -- those could've used a bit more to latch onto, for sure.

I actually played Prey about 6 months ago and I was amazed by it. I was so enthralled I played it 3 times through back to back, then played all the DLC, then played the story campaign one more time. I had a blast all through it. I was sorry to put it down, I only stopped because I felt I had finally seen everything it had to offer. Fantastic game, I hope I remember it a few years from now.

Can't speak for anyone else but for me it's one of the best and most memorable modern games I've played in the 2010s

I think the most memeable moment is a room filled with sticky notes with "THIS IS NOT A MIMIC" or just "NOT A MIMIC". I see it from time to time in meme sites or D&D content.

I think it's okay for a game to come out, be enjoyed, and then forgotten. I'm okay with us not remembering everything everywhere for all time.

I was literally having a discussion with some friends the other day about how lots of big studio modern games these days get big advertising campaigns and promotion and then the game comes out and vanishes into the void like it never existed and i brought this game up, described it to them, but actually couldn't remember the name of the game. spooky that this got posted so soon after.

I feel like one problem that Prey's storyline had was that it was too straightforward. At the end we got that twist of it all being a dream, but the problem is that was the only twist in the story. As soon as I learned that this universe has the technology to deepfake human voices, I immediately thought back to those videos we were shown of the protagonist talking early in the game. I was so sure that if I went back and tried to read his lips, it would show he was saying something completely different. Nope. Without being a massively telegraphed twist villain, January, the pc's main confidant, is just bland.

It's kinda strange that a massive amount of this game's failure can be blamed on the name. Prey 2006 wasn't a big game, but was remembered enough to cause confusion of "Is this a remake? A sequel? A reboot? A new game entirely?". I'm pretty sure they were originally deciding between Typhon and Neuroshock, but they had to switch it when Bethesda stepped in.

I actually thought the reason prey was tossed to the back of the mind was because it's characters where so forgettable. Honestly I can't remember the name of any named character.

Honestly this has to be one of my favorite games of all time. It never got the respect it deserves

Honestly for me the most memorable parts were the voice logs, after 100%ing the game you end up hearing all of them and it really adds to the world building as you learn about these now dead crew members who were living their lives and you get to hear about the outbreak happening through people's interactions and calls which can then be seen when you visit their rooms or places mentioned in voice logs. It's truly a memorable game for the sheer amount of immersion it makes you feel. Also Dr Dayo Igwe's interactions are some of my most memorable moments, from the time i had to keep reloading a save in order to stop him dying from a Nightmare, to the constant huming when i shot him with glue.

People seem to be confused he didn't say it was bad he said it's forgettable and didn't gain mass appeal which is true

People saying "I will not take this slander the game was great" he literally says a minute in that the problem with the game isn't that is bad but that it didn't left the impact it should have for such a good game

6:30 I think this is the main thing. Prey (2017) is like a perfectly round, smooth stone you find in nature: Very interesting when you first find it because that's fairly rare, but once you've seen it, you've seen the whole thing. Maybe you put it on a shelf but you don't dwell on it (you probably even forget you have it until you happen to look directly at it.) There's nothing to dwell on. If the station had a cartoon-y mascot like many Japanese rail stations, if the Mimics would do more than just turn into objects and wait--heck, if the Mimics would have imperfect transformations 10% of the time, so the chair-sized coffee mug stuck out, or the Mimic that couldn't decide if it wanted to be a desk or a wrench was a tell. These would have made it stick in minds more, but because the game is so polished everything flows and interacts with a tight cohesion such that nothing of note sticks out from the smooth sphere it is. This whole video could be about The Witness, I think: When it came out it was fairly well received IIRC, but no one remembers it. The name is unremarkable and tangentially related (Heck, I had to go through my Steam library to remember the title when I thought of the game.) Aside from the odd video found at the end of the Developer Room (which few found and even fewer bothered to sit through, I assume), it's incredibly straightforward. There are odd things but, within the game, they are _common_ odd things. The ending was also kind of a nut-punch. Enjoyable while played, but once done it doesn't even stay in your short-term memory.

I think you hit the nail on the head with the "arrow to the knee" bit. As insufferable as that meme was, it was something external to the game that added weight to the fandom and discourse around the game. Prey didn't have any of that - it was purely good gameplay without any hooks, narrative or otherwise. Even now the only thing I can really attribute to Prey in discussion is that it was "the game that tricks you at the beginning into thinking its set somewhere else then becomes like system shock" which is not only not a good 'hook' (because the rest of the game is nothing like the beginning) but it's not distinguishable from the dozen other games that do the same thing.

“Style over substance” is an issue plaguing much of the gaming industry, but Prey achieved the much more impressive, yet equally problematic feat of “substance over style”.

The bad name was one of my theories too. The theory in which it's too perfect doesn't work because people love talking about the shitty name! Your final theory is definitely the best one. It's not memorable because it has nothing memorable about it. Being good, competent, even original, is not necessarily memorable. The closest the game has to a memorable moment was the glass breaking part. Everyone seems to remember that being a really cool moment.

I played it for the first time a few weeks ago when it was free on Epic, and honestly its one of the most fun I've had in an FPS that didn't have Doom in the title in years. I think its biggest problem is honestly lack of marketing and fucking up the title so bad.

I absolutely love this game. I'm still surprised it didn't get more attention and appreciation.

I found Prey far from forgettable. I remember it pretty clearly, and I look forward to finally getting around to the expansion content.

a question that has bugged me ever since I learned about its existence: does Yahtzee know about the expandalone? from what I've seen it's deathloop but better.

To me it had the same problem as all games that rest on large empty spaces, alone and trying to survive, etc. Its a cool concept when your in the game but afterwards it makes it hard to recall any impactful moments because of the lack of meaningful contact with other characters. Even Dark Souls has other characters that give points of life to an otherwise bleak world.

Probably one of the most memorable games I’ve never played

I watched someone play it on RU-vid and the characters I vaguely remember are:(spoilers) -Your brother -the npc version of the mc -The crazy criminal that was pretending to be the chef -some robot briefcases named after the months of the year -some criminal that the player could attack with mimics -... some engineers? I think they kept dying before you get to see them. That's all I got. No names.

Two things, "would you kindly" and Shodan. Both Bioshock and System Shock 2 had a great build up, story and twist. Prey never had that "grab" I remember playing it, and the story but not the characters, or missions. Like the garden mission in Bioshock or System Shock 2, you remember having to keep yourself alive. Did that happen in Pray? Not sure....

I never played Prey, but a line from Yahtzee's review OF Prey always pops up in my mind, when he's talking about the mimic jumping at you, and "you feel like a gorilla in a phone booth with a wasp." The visual in my mind it gave me made me laugh till it hurt.

Prey had a really strong opening and then it got really repetitive towards the midgame. It could really have used some more enemy variety

This was really interesting to listen to, and makes me want to give Prey another go coincidentally

I will never forget it. I am in a constant state of wanting to replay it every few months.

I think that prey's memorial moments are more personal moments rather then an overarching boss like bioshock or system shock. turning on subtitles and finding out what phantoms say sent chills down my spine, the toilet seat in the character choice being up or down if you're male or female, the secretary outside morgan's office saying her boss is smoking hot if you pick male morgan, staff member playing with the nerf crossbow from a lift, among plenty others. small moments like those really stuck out to me and gave such character to talos itself, a melting pot of gifted, strict, and people just trying to have fun in the middle of a dark ocean then there's those light bulb moments like using the crossbow to hit buttons, screens, or distractions for cystoids and mastering the combat systems like abusing the phantom ragdoll with the wrench to stun lock them. it rewarded the player with knowledge and how to create spectacles in those tense and fleeting combat encounters, rather then the game itself creating spectacles

I never finished or remembered Prey because the enemy design was so incredibly bland. Other immersive sim enemies had memorable characterization or sympathetic goals. Deus Ex's guards were either freedom fighters or former coworkers and System Shock 2's zombie's had a great deal of personality. Prey had a series of featureless black smudges that were neither sympathetic or particularly menacing. I do hope another game adopts the shapeshifter enemy idea, because that design choice transformed the passive collectathon sections into tense moments of risk and reward. Now what if the suspicious extra office chair transformed into an enemy as iconic as ones from other immersive sims? That would be cool.

3:11 On this topic yeah not only are you completely right about this but the original title was literally “Psycho-Shock”. That made a lot more sense with the concept of the game AND made the System Shock/Bioshock spiritual succession even more clear, but it was changed to Prey because they had the IP and wanted to use it and this new game was also a weird spaceship alien shooter game that they had doubts about the profitability of.

I loved Prey so much it was my first platinum. Your feeling of not being able to remember anything about it after playing is very similar to the Man in the Tan Jacket from Night Vale. Sometimes great games just fly under the radar. Same thing happened with Metal Arms.

ill never forget that damn jumpscare. that one got me good

One of the best games I've ever played with unforgettable art, music, atmosphere, great story, and fun gameplay scratching just the right itches.

TBH I've personally had this struggle with all Arkane games. I can see the care and craft that goes into them all, but something about them leaves me cold.

I loved Prey to bits and I can remember basically all the plot beats, but it really wasn't a mainstream game. The combat requires a bit more effort than many people are prepared to put in, and you can handicap yourself badly if you don't think your build through. The enemies are varied but all basically one flavour, there are no stomping bots or apologetic kamikaze protocol droids. It's breathtaking art deco but it's sterile and hostile - and if you don't like feeling constantly threatened it can be frustrating. It's a bit of a weird spot.

Forgettable ? One of the best game ever.

Prey 2017 was my GOTY and one my favorite experiences in gaming. To me it was a better Bioshock. Main story beyond some killer twists (if you had no spoilers going in) was admittedly kind of weak, compared to the world building you get from all the notes and computers (that stuff was grade A amazing), gunplay was satisfying as hell (but suffered from lack of enemy variety), breaking down materials from random stuff around the station and using a futuristic 3D printer to turn it into useful things without much restriction was genius. Ending certainly had more to be desired but all-in-all, it is in my mind one of the MOST memorable gaming experiences I've ever had. God I loved that game.

See I consider Prey as one of my favourite single player games of all time, and for me the mimics create some excellent gameplay and story moments that stick with me. The rest of the characters and story were...good if not spectacular; and I do wish the Typhon varients had more distinct designs

It wasn’t forgettable, it was a great and memorable game.

Prey was a game I tried, for free, and never went back to. I never beat it, mostly because I never felt driven to. There was nothing that drove me to progress. The mimics were cool, and gave a sense of horror... then you got that upgrade to detected them. It had some interesting moral choices, like with that forgotten prisoner. It even had good gameplay systems. The only motivator through the story was the Yu bots... ohhh, which one to trust, is this the goal, or is this... it was all just too wishy-washy. Then you had the goal of finding all the dead staff, and I thought, fk this. I don't care about Yu, the station, or anything. Close game, and didn't look back. In a year with SO MANY good games (2017 being the best year in that decade), it's no wonder it fell by the wayside.

For me the biggest problem with Prey is not that the ending is a letdown. It's that the ending had me hyped up for playing THAT game, the one where you're a freshly minted human/mimic hybrid ready to kick ass and take back the world. But that game didn't get made.

I got halfway through Prey and, while it’s a perfectly good game on a mechanic level, I just kind of didn’t feel like finishing it….. no idea why

aw dang! prey was one of the first games I played on my let's-play channel. I love that game. I thought it was great, and such a wonderfully creepy concept where anything in the room could be a threat. after I beat it in my let's-play I immediately started over off-screen and played through the whole thing again. even years later I still consider it one of my faves. I'm surprised it's not considered more memorable or talked about much in the gaming scene

Amazing game and the best job showing how unsettling and disorienting space really is. I remember the genuine ass clenching terror I felt the first time I had to go outside the station to fix something in the vacuum of space, I remember gasping when I missed a airlock and watched the station fly away from me until I could regain my bearings, and that the first time I saw a mimic in space it actually calmed me down a bit because fighting monsters is something most of us can do by instinct now.

Thank you for revisiting Prey! One of the best games I’ve ever played.

I couldn't even finish prey because it was just so dull. But the moon crash DLC went on to be my game of the year. It's what every roguelike should model itself after. Perfect level of randomization and programmed progress that utilizes the time you invest to actually push the game forward and evolve itself.

I think a big reason why Prey never got the love it deserved is that its quite slow to start gameplay-wise - the story is very on the go from the start but when I first played it I only put in a couple hours before leaving it for a while, because the emergent gameplay hadn't, well, emerged. Its slow and not terribly interesting to play until you learn, combine and abuse all the mechanics that are there. I'm sure there are plenty of people who weren't grabbed by it and never got past the initial slog to the incredible game it is.

It's a strange feeling for sure. I felt the same way about The Forgotten City. I enjoyed the hell out of it and thought about it a lot after finishing it, but I have given it ZERO thoughts shortly afterwards. It makes me feel kind of bad, it's a good game, but

I think what is missing in your argument is that there is nothing that stands out in Prey, it is good, everything is good, BUT, nothing is EXCELENT. You need something to standout, you don't need "flaws to be able to see the goods", but something do need to standout or you will forever be remembered as "just good".

Whenever I think of Prey I think of what could have been, some of you might know, that game that you saw when Prey 2 was first announced and the subsequent gameplay showcase of it. An immersive sim where you play as a space bounty hunter from Earth, similar but not really to High on Life if that game put more thought into the being a bounty hunter part of the game. It looked like it could be some serious fun, the game from my memory was said to be completely done with development too. Then some corporate bullshit happened that I can't really see through and the plug got pulled on it. Now we have Prey (2017). I liked Prey (2017), I liked it a lot, but it didn't have to be called Prey, this game deserves more than to just be a reboot of a series that everyone was waiting for the sequel on. That and I just want to play Prey 2.

Originally I stopped playing Prey at an early stage as travelling between areas spawned monsters and randomly damaged turrets I left for myself. It just bugged me that the enemies weren't actually damaging the turrets, instead they just got randomly damaged. Like I left half a dozen turret in a place, all turned towards the one entrance and and a minute later I come back after a loading screen and 4 were destroyed, no sign of combat. Like... if it was such a brutally strong enemy that it could frontally assault that many turrets and take out 4, yet not a bullet hole, no damage in the furniture and it only destroyed 4 turrets, the rest weren't even hit... Not to mention hunting for materials became a direct loss since you had to spend materials to kill enemies and at the early stages you couldn't just sneak by that easily nor could you source so much materials. After all the materials didn't respawn while enemies did so it really riled up my tactical, hoarder mind. Years later I restarted and knowing all that abandoned that playstyle and just went ham on the enemies. Game rapidly devolves into you hunting them instead of the other way around and from that point on I didn't need to worry about losing materials to fighting as the enemy became my materials. It was a bloody harvest. Was fun but when a game acts like you need to sneak around but effectively punishes you if you do just that... yeah. I did enjoy it a lot but I don't see myself replaying it again. The moon dlc I outright hated as I loath anything with a time limit or with mandatory deaths/loss. It felt like "that cinematic where your character gets in trouble out of your control": The Game. Honestly I feel like that about a lot of roguelikes.

Also I fundamentally disagree with the idea that people like games because of their faults. Portal isn't a masterpiece because of it's flaws, it's a masterpiece because it doesn't have any. Maybe Yhatzee was just in a bad mindset when he was playing it. Going through a open world rut or something. Prey had plenty of memorable parts. Turning yourself into any object that wasn't bolted to the floor, using the gloo gun to make your own paths to the objective, the jetpack-in-space part, that creepy soundtrack by Mick Gordon

My initial reaction when I saw the title was "It wasn't forgettable!" But then I realized that I rarely think about it anymore. Prey is one of those fun-in-the-moment games and in fact it seems like it might convince our brain that it's better than it actually was. I do remember pieces of the game: the intro, the poor ending, the mimics, the Gloo Gun, the "Cook" NPC, and floating in space. But the rest (so like 90% of the game) is sort of a blur of generic-but-nice-looking spaceship exploration and whatever other combat happened. And unless I see its name somewhere, I don't passively think about it the same way that I do with Bloodborne, Fallout, etc.

I know 4 other people who played, we all enjoyed it, none of us finished it.

I genuinely enjoyed this game. It was like a cozy warm bath of expected but welcome tension, fp metroid vania, and brutal power-augmenting eye-trauma I slowly got addicted too.

i bought this game for $10 a few months after release, haven't started it yet

The thought that came to mind for me was that the whole game was just one big personality test. It starts off asking you what you think you know about yourself, then it sticks you in a scenario that puts those assumptions to the test. You have to figure that, at the end of something like that, people might not like what they saw in themselves.

I love "Extra Punctuation." I could happily listen to Yahtzee's analysis for hours on end.

actually really liked the ending some might say its a cop but i don't reckon that applies if it has been hinted at from the beginning to the end so when u finally do get to the ending it feels like it all made sense. There's actually a lot of foreshadowing in prey like when u first do your tests and the researchers are surprised that you picked up an item or hid behind the chair instead of incinerating or mimicking the chair. or when they ask you weird moral based questions during the tests but also throughout the playthrough like when January asks for your opinion on why you killed or didn't kill Aaron Ingram also there are various audio logs that hint to the ending of the game.

Prey is my absolute favorite single player game and I have finished it 5 times (one time with a "super hard mode" mod) I hope enough people talk about so we'll get a slim chance of "prey 2017: 2" P.s loved the dlc also.

Prey is one of those ones that games journalists and youtubers seems to absolute love but I've never actually met someone who likes it. Most got pretty bored after an hour or two like I did

Gotta admit, I did not foresee Driver: San Francisco coming up in this.

The main thing I remember from Prey was that neat looking glass effect, namely in the opening sequence and when you break the cycle and see the cool "behind-the-scenes" area like how the helicopter ride was fabricated. Outside of that, yeah, it's pretty much the award winner for Best Game I Don't Really Remember.

the problem with prey except the name IMO is that the enemies were not even remotely memorable, which is what you have to deal with from start to finish, black goo of X shape that doesn't talk in a station when you can speak only at specific vending machine ai is NOT a memorable thing to a game that the character mostly doesn't talk...so you are left with an interesting place, an interesting story and NOTHING interesting for 10+ hours....this is why none remembers it

flaws, lack of flaws, whatever it is, Prey (2017) is still one of my favourite games of all time. And one of very few games I regularly check the category for on Twitch to tune in to streamers i don't already know just to see their experience of it. I think that says something

For all of its *shock patina, Prey was perfectly refined to a well-oiled game that was neither great enough to tell people about and not bad enough to complain about

I really enjoyed the original Prey, it had that campyness that Prey(2017) never had and although I really enjoyed the Bioshock series and System Shock 2 I could never really get into Prey(2017) no matter how many times I tried, I knew it was good and had a lot of things I liked but I just found I didn't really have fun playing it or feel the drive to continue after a certain point and always just moved on to other games instead of finishing it. I think it may partially be that I remember what Prey 2 was supposed to be before it became the less enjoyable System Shock 2 clone it eventually did and that may have somehow soured the experience. What would you rather have? A Space exploration bounty hunting game essentially being your own Boba Fett as Prey 2 would have been or exploring an empty space ship full of goo monsters with elements pulled from older and more unique games but done in a serviceable manner as Prey(2017) did.

It wasn't forgettable, it was one of the best games I've ever played and possibly the best ImSim made. It suffered in precisely 2 regards, the name and limited enemy variety. The name instantly embittered fans of Prey 2006 and anyone else less than impressed with Bethesda's shenanigans behind the scenes, had it been called NeuroShock or literally anything else more people may have given it a chance at the time. Folks who did play it noticed fairly quickly the game has about 5 enemy types with different 2-3 flavours for 4 of them, your mileage may vary on how you feel about that. I guess you could say that the story was somewhat straightforward but how it was delivered and the various set pieces kept it appealing. Otherwise from sound to art design to gameplay and latitude of player agency it's among the best on the market.

At this point, I've seen more videos about why no one talks about Prey than people... not talking about Prey. Wait... that doesn't... Well, you know what I mean.

I didn't know that game is considered forgotten. It always seems to me that people on youtube, especially those that use the term "Immersive Sim" a lot, won't shut up about it. The problem is probably more, that these types of games, while incredibly well liked by a small group of people, simply lack mass appeal. The mix of first person shooter, survival game, rpg, stealth, metroidvania and adventure are intriguing for someone willing to put in the time and effort to fully experience it, but may seem too complicated for someone who likes to play games in a more casual way. Most games of that type that aren't Deus Ex of Dishonored weren't as successful as we like to think. Ultima Underworld was in a lot of ways far more advanced than Wolfenstein 3D or Doom, but these games where fast and simple, while Underworld was slow, had clunky combad and a lot of weird mechanics like limited inventory space, a dialogue system requiring you to learn a fictive language and a complex runic spell system. Wolfenstein and Doom had huge cultural impact and let to francises that are still worth hundreds of millions today, while the closest thing we ever got to an official modern sequel to Underworld was that kickstarter thing no one likes to talk about. Thief 2 is by many considered to be one of the best games ever made, but couldn't save Looking Glass Studios from closing. Even Arkane's first game, and the one most similar to Prey (2017), Arx Fatalis, ended up as one of the many early 2000's rpgs that got overshadowed by Morrowind. Calling the game Prey did probably not help. They alienated two fanbases at once, those that are still angry that the game wasn't Prey 2, and those that were not interested in the game because it was marketed as a reboot/remake to some mid 2000's shooter instead of the spiritual successor to the System Shock games that Bioshock not quite was. Taking the original Prey game of digital stores in an age in which the conservation of games is getting more concern, even if that was probably more due to the amount of licenced music in that game, made it even worse.

Prey didn't get coverage from media. That's the reason. It is still an absolutely fantastic game. I didn't play it until a few years later because when it released it got little attention. I knew nothing about it. Once I played it? Absolutely amazing gem.

I remember trying this game back when it was released and the goo monsters just turned me off. Like, I thought that it was the most boring enemy design I've ever seen. The thought of having to fight these guys for the rest of the game made me stop playing. Then during COVID, I see all these videos praising the game so I gave it a try. Could see the quality of it, but still didn't grab me. Decided to re-play Dead Space instead. Maybe I just need to be in a certain mood to really enjoy it.