Prey Review

Talos I is the reason to play Prey. Arkane built a station that is architecturally coherent from lobby to cargo bay, with a shaft you can travel end to end once you have the tools, and vents, keycodes, terminals and physics tricks that mean every locked door has at least three answers. The mimics, which disguise themselves as coffee mugs and office chairs, create a paranoia no other shooter has matched.

Where reviewers diverged is everything downstream of that design. Combat against the typhon is mushy, enemy variety thins out badly in the back half, and the encounters standing between you and the next good idea start to feel like a toll. The characters are audio logs more than people, the pacing sags near the midpoint, and the ending arrives with a reveal that undercuts more than it explains. The systems and the building are first class work from a small team, which is why affection for it has grown rather than faded.