Cards on the table, I've never played Prey. It was 2006, and I wasn't that into my PC gaming (or gaming overall) as much as I am now. I was away of it at release though, dismissing it as yet another FPS where you'd be trying to kill something for some contrived reasons.
Prey is not that simple though. It actually tells the tale of a Native American man who is abducted, along with his girlfriend and grandfather, into a semi-organic alien spaceship called The Sphere, and the fight back against the cybernetically enhanced alien races that maintain the invading ship.
The game featured strong Native American themes, with Tommy, the player character, being able to spirit walk to new areas along with his spirit guide Talon. It also did portals before Portal, as well as gravity shifts before Super Mario Galaxy. In essence, the game was ambitious and won a lot of fans with ideas which were ahead of their time.
The details of Prey 2 make it out to be an entirely different beast. An open world game featuring open-ended missions, moral choices and parkour, some kind of fusion of Mass Effect, Bioshock and Red Dead Redemption. The character is apparently the connection between the two games; Killian Samuels was a sheriff on the plane which crashed into the sphere in the original game.
You might think the long awaited sequel to a cult hit shooter would be the best news that some fans could have hoped for. Unfortunately not. Along with the first screen shot of Killian and the basic game concept came angry from the fans. Many claimed that it was too far a step from its Native American inspired predecessor. Others suggested that it had undergone the CoD effect, dumbed down for the modern day shooter masses.
Human Head Studios, the developer of both the original and the sequel, soon after released more information, explaining the previously mentioned fusion of gameplay elements. As people caught wind of these elements and screenshots started emerging, the general opinion started to move in a positive direction. Prey 2 was starting to look as ambitious as its predecessor. Of course, there were still some who wanted to see the return of Tommy, and a continuation of his story. Human Head offered the somewhat cryptic remark that Tommy will be involved, but not directly.
But it presents an interesting dilemma. Human Head have deviated so far from what they had before. Instead of offering up more of the same, they took an enormous left turn, resulting in a game which felt, on first impressions, entirely alien. But surely that's a good thing? We always talk about how desperately the industry needs innovation and fresh ideas, and here's a company taking a loved game and building something entirely new from it. Isn't this a Good Thing?
Perhaps not. Yes, innovation is good. I'm the first to attack CoD for being the same game for five years. Sometimes, however, there's too much innovation. Imagine if Portal 2 had done away with the setting of Apeture, lost GLaDOS, taken a new unknown character to a different location with a different kind of portal gun. Yeah, it would be new and imaginative, but it's too far away from what people liked about the original. The same applies to Prey. People enjoyed the story, the clever gravity puzzles, the portals and the setting. Taking all of this away and making something entirely different altogether, albeit in the same universe, is breaking the mold to a dangerous degree. As many people said "Why is it even called Prey 2?"
At the end of day, you sometimes have to put a bit of faith into a developer. I remember a quote saying that "Prey 2 is the sequel the Human Head wanted to make." Sometimes, we as consumers have to accept that the devs have the right to change things in their games, and have some trust in what they are doing. Imagine if just after finishing Half Life, someone told you the sequel took place in a suppressed Eastern European city, and you get a gun that can pick up boxes. Sounds insane. Sounds nothing like the Half Life you love. But it worked so well. I think the same might happen with Prey 2.
On paper, it sounds mad, but in practice... It might just be as intelligent as the original.
The game featured strong Native American themes, with Tommy, the player character, being able to spirit walk to new areas along with his spirit guide Talon. It also did portals before Portal, as well as gravity shifts before Super Mario Galaxy. In essence, the game was ambitious and won a lot of fans with ideas which were ahead of their time.
The details of Prey 2 make it out to be an entirely different beast. An open world game featuring open-ended missions, moral choices and parkour, some kind of fusion of Mass Effect, Bioshock and Red Dead Redemption. The character is apparently the connection between the two games; Killian Samuels was a sheriff on the plane which crashed into the sphere in the original game.
You might think the long awaited sequel to a cult hit shooter would be the best news that some fans could have hoped for. Unfortunately not. Along with the first screen shot of Killian and the basic game concept came angry from the fans. Many claimed that it was too far a step from its Native American inspired predecessor. Others suggested that it had undergone the CoD effect, dumbed down for the modern day shooter masses.
Human Head Studios, the developer of both the original and the sequel, soon after released more information, explaining the previously mentioned fusion of gameplay elements. As people caught wind of these elements and screenshots started emerging, the general opinion started to move in a positive direction. Prey 2 was starting to look as ambitious as its predecessor. Of course, there were still some who wanted to see the return of Tommy, and a continuation of his story. Human Head offered the somewhat cryptic remark that Tommy will be involved, but not directly.
But it presents an interesting dilemma. Human Head have deviated so far from what they had before. Instead of offering up more of the same, they took an enormous left turn, resulting in a game which felt, on first impressions, entirely alien. But surely that's a good thing? We always talk about how desperately the industry needs innovation and fresh ideas, and here's a company taking a loved game and building something entirely new from it. Isn't this a Good Thing?
Perhaps not. Yes, innovation is good. I'm the first to attack CoD for being the same game for five years. Sometimes, however, there's too much innovation. Imagine if Portal 2 had done away with the setting of Apeture, lost GLaDOS, taken a new unknown character to a different location with a different kind of portal gun. Yeah, it would be new and imaginative, but it's too far away from what people liked about the original. The same applies to Prey. People enjoyed the story, the clever gravity puzzles, the portals and the setting. Taking all of this away and making something entirely different altogether, albeit in the same universe, is breaking the mold to a dangerous degree. As many people said "Why is it even called Prey 2?"
At the end of day, you sometimes have to put a bit of faith into a developer. I remember a quote saying that "Prey 2 is the sequel the Human Head wanted to make." Sometimes, we as consumers have to accept that the devs have the right to change things in their games, and have some trust in what they are doing. Imagine if just after finishing Half Life, someone told you the sequel took place in a suppressed Eastern European city, and you get a gun that can pick up boxes. Sounds insane. Sounds nothing like the Half Life you love. But it worked so well. I think the same might happen with Prey 2.
On paper, it sounds mad, but in practice... It might just be as intelligent as the original.
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