No wonder people call it the pinnacle of immersive sims.
The beginning of the game felt just magical! The exploration, learning all the mechanics and what means are available to you, yearning to uncover what happened...
I liked the story. The way of how it was uncovered to you also seemed neat.
Most of the time, the game felt fresh but I would welcome more weapon choices and maybe enemy types.
The ending was a mindfuck >.< Left me wanting to explore different choices available.

I thought my opinion would be waaaay more controversial but no, it seems like this game is generally well received. Now in short: I, Love, This, Game.

Apparantly people call these kind of games "immersive simulations", which is a term I have never encountered before but sure, seems logical enough.

I have no idea about anything that went on in the story. Everything was just weird in a freaky and exiciting way, like how you have no idea what is going on in Dark Souls until you watch Vaatividya's explanations. But after reading a sumary the story seems actually pretty interresting.

But now the part of the game that makes it one of my personal favourites (and also the reason why I can't shut up about the game). I love the gameplay. I love it when games just have an internal logic that you can use to your advantage. I love it when games leave room for freedom and expression. And finally I love it when there are multiple ways of going about solving a puzzle/clearing a room full of enemies. Prey is the first game of this kind that I have played, where there are just so many possibilities and tools to interact with the environment.

So the gist of Prey is that you are some kind of guy or gal, you wake up, see a guy get eaten by his coffee mug, you wake up again, you smash a window make your way through the first part of the game and eventually end up in the lobby, where you notice, that you are on a space ship and you are trapped with these eldritch horror looking human eating aliens consisting of somekind of weird black shifting matter. From there on out you are mostly free to roam the facility. I still destinctly remember how my first instinct was to return and to use my gloo gun to build makeshift stairs. I reached an area that was dark and really scary and I definetly shit myself when there suddenly appeared a phantom right infront of me. The game didn't tell me to go to that place, but it gave me the tools and I figured it out by myself. And this sums up my experience with Prey quite nicely. Where ever I went I found puzzles in the form of locked rooms or safes. This was the game's way of challenging me to use my brain. And it felt so satisfying everytime when I got into a room through any other way that isn't the front door.

10/10 for the most liberating experience I have ever felt in gaming and also for scaring me to death multiple times in the first hours.

Prey (2017) wraps up after 23 hours on PS4. Its gameplay stands out as the gem of the experience, drastically transforming your playstyle and strategies from slow-mo gunfights to embodying a fascinating alien persona, stealth mechanics (which are surprisingly engaging), to full-on brawls, among others, making other RPGs pale in comparison. The simple deconstruction and crafting system is also noteworthy. Its top-notch level design allows for non-linear approaches, rewarding experimentation that often feels ingenious.

However, the game does have a couple of significant issues that prevent it from shining brightly. Firstly, its backtracking system is flawed, with long loading times between hubs and unenjoyable fast travel mechanics that involve floating through space to find an airlock, leading to excessive backtracking. Moreover, some side objectives cannot be completed immediately, requiring you to wait for story developments or consult guides to know when they become accessible, which can be mentally taxing.

Secondly, its enemies lack iconicity. For a game inspired by titles like System Shock and Bioshock, one would expect memorable adversaries akin to SHODAN or Big Daddies. However, Prey only offers Typhoons, typical formless alien entities and their variants, lacking a definitive antagonist and resulting in a somewhat forgettable experience.

Other than that, the game's difficulty curve is uneven, starting off challenging and frustrating, becoming too easy towards the end once you're fully equipped with neuromods, chips, and an arsenal of weapons. The game's best moments are found in the mid-game, and its gunplay, while serviceable, lacks the impact expected in an FPS, with weapons feeling somewhat underwhelming.

My score: 3.5/5. (Would have given 4, but oh, the dreaded backtracking with loading screens).

Difficult to get into initially, the incredible world design and plot allow you to really get lost in the game. The immersion of this game is its strongest quality. I think that this game is underrated in its genre. One of the real strengths of this game come through the fact that there are many ways to solve one problem e.g. by stealth, hacking, setting a trap, using psi attacks or just using bullets.

The weakest points of the game are character design, as I never felt attached to any of them. I also am still not sure whether I liked or didn't like the plot twist at the very end. The combat at times can be unenjoyable and repetitive but only to a minor extent. I think the game struggles with a pacing issue for the last 20% of the story.

These gripes however are relatively minor and the game is still very enjoyable. I find the game to be most enjoyable played on a harder difficulty as part of the enjoyment comes from playing around the enemies and easier difficulties make them far too easy to deal with.