What's the game about?
What's the game about?
In Prey, the player controls Morgan Yu while exploring the space station Talos I, in orbit around Earth–Moon L2, where research into a hostile alien collective called the Typhon is performed. As the Typhon escape confinement, the player uses a variety of weapons and abilities derived from the Typhon to avoid being killed by the aliens while looking to escape the station. The player gains access to areas of the station through a Metroidvania style of progression by acquiring key items and abilities, eventually allowing the player to fully explore the station in an open-world setting. Arkane's Prey is a re-imagining of the 2006 game Prey developed by Human Head Studios. While Prey 2, a sequel to the 2006 game, had been planned, it fell into development hell following transfer of the intellectual property from 3D Realms to Bethesda Softworks, and was eventually cancelled in 2014. Arkane's version does not use any of the planned sequel's assets, and only incorporates the name and the broad theme of the protagonist being hunted by aliens of the previous games. Arkane built Prey as a spiritual sequel to System Shock, providing the player with several potential means of progressing within the game.
The wiki
Prey takes place in an alternate timeline where United States President John F. Kennedy survives his attempted assassination in 1963. The failed assassination catalyzes Kennedy to direct more funding into the space program, allowing it to flourish and accelerating the Space Race. Drawn by humans' activity in space, an alien force made up of many different species, collectively called the Typhon, attacks Earth. The United States and the U.S.S.R. band together to fight off and capture the Typhon, unbeknownst to the general population. Together, they build the space station Kletka (Russian for "cage") to be used as a prison for the Typhon situated in orbit around Earth's moon. The United States eventually takes full ownership after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1964 and reuses Kletka as part of "Project Axiom", research labs atop the prison spaces to study the Typhon and bring advances learned from that to Earth. After the "Pobeg Incident" in 1980 where some scientists aboard the station lost their lives to the Typhon, along with geopolitical instability at the time, the United States shuttered Project Axiom, leaving the captive Typhon alive.
By 2025, the newly founded TranStar Corporation acquires Kletka and by 2030, has refitted it as Talos I, a fully operational research laboratory to study the Typhon and develop advances in neuroscience; this leads to the creation of Neuromods that harness the Typhon's physiology to restructure the human brain to grant the user new abilities (including superhuman ones). TranStar grows financially successful from sales of Neuromods on Earth. At the time of the game's setting, about 2035, TranStar has further expanded the station to make for suitable living quarters for its staff that spend up to two years on the station between regular shuttles to Earth.
Because of the numerous agencies that operated and expanded Talos I over the decades, the station includes a large mix of architectural designs, ranging from retrofuturism that was popular in 1960s America, to brutalist styles that were common in the Soviet Bloc in the mid-20th century, to opulent Art Deco put in place by the wealthy TranStar executives.
In March 2032, Morgan Yu is recruited by their brother Alex to join TranStar's research team on Talos I. However, while taking a series of tests prior to leaving for the station, one of the supervising doctors is attacked by a Typhon and Morgan is knocked out. Morgan wakes up again in their apartment, but quickly finds out that it is merely a simulated environment. It is 2035 and they have actually already been living on Talos I for three years. Morgan is then contacted by January, an Operator artificial intelligence that claims to have been built by Morgan. January warns Morgan that the Typhon have broken containment and taken over the station, killing the majority of the crew. It also reveals to Morgan that they had been testing neuromods for the past three years, with Morgan continually adding and removing them. However, a side effect of removing a neuromod is that the user loses all memories gained after installation of that neuromod, explaining Morgan's memory loss. January then claims that Morgan built it to help Morgan destroy Talos I, taking the Typhon and all of its research with it. Meanwhile, Alex contacts Morgan and pleads with them to instead build a special Nullwave device that will destroy the Typhon but leave the station intact, citing how their research is too valuable to lose.
As Morgan makes their way through the station, they come across other survivors which they may choose to help or not. Alex then tasks Morgan with scanning the Typhon "Coral" growing around the station, and discovers that the Typhon are building some sort of neural network. However, their attempts to study the neural network are interrupted when the TranStar Board of Directors learns of the containment breach and sends a cleanup crew to eliminate both the Typhon and any surviving station crew. After the cleanup crew is eliminated, Alex further analyzes the data and concludes that the Typhon are sending a signal into deep space to summon something. Suddenly, a gargantuan Typhon (called Apex) appears and begins to devour Talos I. Morgan is then given the choice of activating the station's self-destruct sequence or building the Nullwave device to defeat the Typhon.
If Morgan chooses to activate the Nullwave device, all of the Typhon on Talos I are destroyed and the station is left intact to allow further neuromod research. If Morgan chooses to activate the self-destruct, then the entire station explodes, destroying all of the Typhon with it. Based on Morgan's earlier choices, Morgan can either find a way to escape the station or is stranded and dies in the explosion as well.
In a post-credits scene, Morgan wakes up in a lab and learns that they are not the real Morgan, but instead a captured Typhon implanted with Morgan's memories in an effort to teach it human emotions and empathy. The real Morgan is long dead and the Typhon have already spread on Earth. Alex and his Operator assistants then judge "Morgan" based on the choices it made throughout the game. If "Morgan" failed to show human empathy, then Alex destroys it and starts the experiment over. If "Morgan" did show human empathy, Alex lets it go, whereupon it can choose to accept his offer to become an ambassador between the species, or kill him and join the rest of its kind in the extermination of humanity.
