Gameranx: Hands-On Preview With Prey 2

My eyes-on demo of Prey 2 started with the game director telling us just how different this sequel is from the first game. For better or worse (better) this is the truth. Prey 2 is slick. The sequel has traded in the methodical, almost Metroid Prime like pacing of the first for a frenetic thrill ride. In the first game your protagonist was the prey, this time you are the predator.

The story begins with Killian Samuels a US Marshall being abducted by aliens. Add in some plot twists and a bit of amnesia and suddenly Samuels is an excellent human bounty hunter traversing an open alien world in search of answers any way he can get them.

The hook of this game is the freedom it affords you. It’s hard to get that impression from the demos you or I have seen but the game is set in an open world. Moving around that open world is remarkably similar to Mirror’s Edge parkour with one important difference. Although I didn’t get to wrap my hands around a controller I think it is a safe assumption that Mirror’s Edge’s clunky control scheme didn’t make the transition to Prey 2. Every bit of gameplay on display looked silky smooth, arcadey, and effortless.

What comes along with that parkour style movement is a cover system that doesn’t seem to fall into the trap of being too ‘sticky.’ When in cover Samuels can blind fire, line up behind the iron sights, or leap over the barrier guns blazing. That stuck out to me when I first noticed it. No matter what Samuels was doing, climbing, running, or jumping, he never had to stop shooting.

The freedom extends to character interactions. Developers have called the Prey 2’s art style alien noire, claiming that there is no clear delineation between good and evil. The game employs the longstanding video game mechanic of good cop/bad cop behavior. That’s the only place a clear flaw bubble to the surface. In a world where there is no clear good and evil why employ such a simple mechanic? Perhaps the consequences will be cloudier than the actions but there wasn’t evidence of that in the demo.

Since Prey 2 takes place on an alien world there is plenty of advanced technology for Samuels to bring in the bounties with. The first we saw was an obvious take on present day augmented reality applications. Samuels could employ a visual scanner that marked targets as friendly, threatening, or openly hostile. Further, the scanner could identify whether an NPC ha a bounty on their head. This created secondary missions called Ambient Bounties in the open world. Other technology was much more weaponized. Samuels employed shoulder mounted rockets and an interesting taser that bound the body of a fleeing target while electrifying them.

Given that Prey 2 isn’t slated to arrive until 2012 this promising title has plenty of time to build on the impressive set of mechanics shown here at E3. Hopefully next time the game is shown there will be more information about the overall mission structure. However judging from this demo alone Human Head Studios has a great foundation to work from. Keep an eye on Prey 2, it is worthy of the attention it is getting.