“In short, contingency and freedom, it all means creation; freedom for us is creation.” - Henri Bergson
Prey is a video game about action. An immediate question may arise: what video game isn’t about action? A fair enough question since I haven’t set forth any terms. What I mean here is the specific action that philosopher Henri Bergson defined in his book Matter and Memory where he writes, “The degree of independence of which a living being is master, or, as we shall say, the zone of indetermination which surrounds its activity, allows, then, of an a priori estimate of the number and the distance of the things with which it is in relation.” For the most part, video games are constricted experiences, designed in ways that create illusions of action and what action always becomes: creative choice. Video games are limited in a way that we voluntarily ignore; the individual act of playing them already satisfies most base desires. This is not a critique of the medium, but an explanation of how it functions. Video games cannot account for choice (and usually when they try to, they fail spectacularly). The BioShock series is all about this for example. However, Prey, and by extension the entire genre of immersive sims, were created with the intention to capture real-life agency in a virtual world. Prey does this best, partly because these philosophical underpinnings are finally brought to the surface and commented on in meaningful ways — a cohesion only really found in games like Cruelty Squad, Disco Elysium, Pathologic, and Planescape: Torment. If video games are by design vessels for determinism, then Prey is the yolk finally breaking and providing an argument for free will. Again, in the Bergsonian sense, with free will forming from the actions that reflect the personality of a self (an idea explored in his book, Time and Free Will). In immersive sim fashion, such agency is expressed in every crevice of its game design with Prey having an untold number of ways to approach each situation you find yourself in.
In this manner, the game itself plays remarkably like System Shock 2. I had dropped Prey years ago because I played it like an FPS, I am not sure why I exactly did this; having played Dishonored as a teenager I knew what immersive sims were on some level, but I wasn’t making use of any of Prey’s systems. My old save was still there thanks to Steam’s cloud save feature and by the time I got to where I had left off originally, I had put six hours into the game compared to two. This anecdote alone is proof to me that immersive sim deserves to be categorized as its own genre, an opinion with some detractors who only want it to be labeled as a “design philosophy” or think these games are at their core just RPGs or FPS’ like I originally treated Prey as and had a monumentally worse time. Back to System Shock 2 though, having now played that game and it now sitting comfortably in some nebulous top 10 spot for me, Prey clicked from the start. And now that I have finished it, I can comfortably say that Prey is a better game. The freedom of Prey’s mechanics isn’t only there to birth emergent gameplay, the hallmark of immersive sims that makes it my favorite genre, but to make a point about video games and like all great fiction, life itself. The number of tools and systems at play in games like System Shock 2 are there so you can have a different experience with them each time and treat these virtual landscapes as real, lived-in spaces; this design is so open-ended that the developers themselves cannot account for every variable. I was able to sequence break Prey in a few situations thanks to getting creative with the GLOO gun and instead of that feeling only like an emergent discovery, it felt directly tied to how the game presented itself on every level. The choice to act in these ways, like reverting back to a newborn who lacks spatial awareness and forgetting where a staircase was so I created a needless parkour arena out of the reactor core while various Typhon attempted to slaughter me and constantly made me fall back down — while proof that I need to get a new prescription for my glasses — revealed the game’s core philosophy as a game where choice finally matters and the creative potential of freedom that brings.
Prey’s response to System Shock 2’s psi abilities is the ever-creative Typhon powers which you can get by installing neuromods, the game's version of upgrade modules. There are six total categories for neuromods with many different sub-pathways in them, although three of them are for human upgrades like hacking, repair, and stealth and then three for the Typhon powers which you gain through researching the various types of Typhon on Talos I. You can mix and match these to your heart's desire, or only play with one, or neither. Here again, though, Prey is able to take a standard element of game design and breathe new life into it by exploring how neuromods are made and their effects on the people who install them. What exactly does it mean to be human? What does it mean to be human when you alter yourself with the ability to morph into a coffee cup and roll around before transforming back and hitting an unsuspecting goo monster with a wrench?
Having only talked about Prey’s gameplay up to this point, gameplay that if you have played one of the other 40 immersive sims that have been made in the last 30 years might not strike you as needing such philosophical analysis, it is then paramount to detail some of Prey’s thematic elements from its story, where all this philosophy is at the forefront. It isn’t that Prey is such an obvious standout in its own genre gameplaywise but that it coalesces so seamlessly with its story-driven themes in fully artistic and emotional ways.
It is then of course no surprise that Chris Avellone helped write this game alongside Raphaël Colantonio and Ricardo Bare (Prey’s director and lead designer respectively), for Avellone’s magnum opus Planescape: Torment is centered around the principle question, “What can change the nature of a man?” and it has a definitive answer: choice. Prey follows this path, not in a derivative way, but in the same philosophical fashion. According to the philosopher Gilles Deleuze, the foundational aspect of our reality is that of difference, in this regard the entire notion of a Being, or anything static, or any notion of a true self or an essence is shattered and disposed of. All we are, all there is, is Becoming. Identity is forgone in the place of a multiplicity of difference and any repetitions will always be different; change is the only constant, as the character January states near the end of the game, “the ‘real’ Morgan is a fiction.” The process of Becoming is integral; it is not that Morgan Yu is there to be a measly projection, there are far too many videos and audiologs of them to be considered a blank slate character, it is that with every action they take Morgan becomes someone new — it is difference all the way down.
This underlying ontology gives way to a system of ethics as well, which is most notably present in how the game goes about its main quest and endings that January, Alex Yu, Dr. Igwe, and Mikhaila Ilyushin all play their respective parts in. Prey makes use of the trolley problem — a notoriously boring thought experiment that exists to make utilitarians think too highly of themselves — in a thought-provoking way. Which is frankly speaking revolutionary. While the more overarching elements are not something I can delve into without taking Prey’s climactic catharsis away from anyone reading this who hasn’t played it yet — the ethical parts of Prey are just as present in its side content. Talos I, the setting of Prey, has one very striking difference to the Immersive Sim in Space that it owes its existence to: humans who aren’t dead the second the game begins. Another revolutionary design choice from Arkane. How you choose to interact with these struggling survivors is going to define you, to the point that if you play the game “empathetically” you will receive an achievement titled “I and Thou,” which I will eat a shoe if that is somehow not a direct reference to Martin Buber’s book of the same name. Side quests where you can find Mikhaila’s medicine or get a piano recording so Dr. Igwe can hold onto a song that he and his now-dead wife loved, to helping a stuck escape pod launch all exist to reflect your approach to Talos I and a seemingly unstoppable threat that has the potential to reach Earth and likely drive humanity to extinction. All throughout these side quests you will receive radio transmissions from January, the most extreme deontologist in fiction, commenting on your behavior. It’s a small station, orbiting a moon that orbits an even bigger world. Who are you, who are these people, in the face of a threat this large? Should you be taking all these diversions to give them comfort, especially if this robot with your voice wants you to blow up the whole place? Well, you’re a human, aren’t you? The choice is yours.
While much of Prey uses high-concept philosophy to get across its sci-fi adventure, it is in these moments of humanity where the game truly shines. There is much art that falls on its face for trying to intellectualize itself, combining theory with fiction in a way that is fun to experience is a difficult task, but Prey excels at it. In a medium that so often plays it safe, Prey goes as far as it can to question you. Our bodies are constructed by action, our perception is tied to the freedom this gives us, and so all we are left with is an endless sea of choices. We all stand on the precipice — anxiety becomes overwhelming in the face of it, but the task at hand is to push forward. These choices will constantly change us or be changed by us. You are not the same person you were yesterday. Neither was Morgan Yu.
Prey is a video game about action. An immediate question may arise: what video game isn’t about action? A fair enough question since I haven’t set forth any terms. What I mean here is the specific action that philosopher Henri Bergson defined in his book Matter and Memory where he writes, “The degree of independence of which a living being is master, or, as we shall say, the zone of indetermination which surrounds its activity, allows, then, of an a priori estimate of the number and the distance of the things with which it is in relation.” For the most part, video games are constricted experiences, designed in ways that create illusions of action and what action always becomes: creative choice. Video games are limited in a way that we voluntarily ignore; the individual act of playing them already satisfies most base desires. This is not a critique of the medium, but an explanation of how it functions. Video games cannot account for choice (and usually when they try to, they fail spectacularly). The BioShock series is all about this for example. However, Prey, and by extension the entire genre of immersive sims, were created with the intention to capture real-life agency in a virtual world. Prey does this best, partly because these philosophical underpinnings are finally brought to the surface and commented on in meaningful ways — a cohesion only really found in games like Cruelty Squad, Disco Elysium, Pathologic, and Planescape: Torment. If video games are by design vessels for determinism, then Prey is the yolk finally breaking and providing an argument for free will. Again, in the Bergsonian sense, with free will forming from the actions that reflect the personality of a self (an idea explored in his book, Time and Free Will). In immersive sim fashion, such agency is expressed in every crevice of its game design with Prey having an untold number of ways to approach each situation you find yourself in.
In this manner, the game itself plays remarkably like System Shock 2. I had dropped Prey years ago because I played it like an FPS, I am not sure why I exactly did this; having played Dishonored as a teenager I knew what immersive sims were on some level, but I wasn’t making use of any of Prey’s systems. My old save was still there thanks to Steam’s cloud save feature and by the time I got to where I had left off originally, I had put six hours into the game compared to two. This anecdote alone is proof to me that immersive sim deserves to be categorized as its own genre, an opinion with some detractors who only want it to be labeled as a “design philosophy” or think these games are at their core just RPGs or FPS’ like I originally treated Prey as and had a monumentally worse time. Back to System Shock 2 though, having now played that game and it now sitting comfortably in some nebulous top 10 spot for me, Prey clicked from the start. And now that I have finished it, I can comfortably say that Prey is a better game. The freedom of Prey’s mechanics isn’t only there to birth emergent gameplay, the hallmark of immersive sims that makes it my favorite genre, but to make a point about video games and like all great fiction, life itself. The number of tools and systems at play in games like System Shock 2 are there so you can have a different experience with them each time and treat these virtual landscapes as real, lived-in spaces; this design is so open-ended that the developers themselves cannot account for every variable. I was able to sequence break Prey in a few situations thanks to getting creative with the GLOO gun and instead of that feeling only like an emergent discovery, it felt directly tied to how the game presented itself on every level. The choice to act in these ways, like reverting back to a newborn who lacks spatial awareness and forgetting where a staircase was so I created a needless parkour arena out of the reactor core while various Typhon attempted to slaughter me and constantly made me fall back down — while proof that I need to get a new prescription for my glasses — revealed the game’s core philosophy as a game where choice finally matters and the creative potential of freedom that brings.
Prey’s response to System Shock 2’s psi abilities is the ever-creative Typhon powers which you can get by installing neuromods, the game's version of upgrade modules. There are six total categories for neuromods with many different sub-pathways in them, although three of them are for human upgrades like hacking, repair, and stealth and then three for the Typhon powers which you gain through researching the various types of Typhon on Talos I. You can mix and match these to your heart's desire, or only play with one, or neither. Here again, though, Prey is able to take a standard element of game design and breathe new life into it by exploring how neuromods are made and their effects on the people who install them. What exactly does it mean to be human? What does it mean to be human when you alter yourself with the ability to morph into a coffee cup and roll around before transforming back and hitting an unsuspecting goo monster with a wrench?
Having only talked about Prey’s gameplay up to this point, gameplay that if you have played one of the other 40 immersive sims that have been made in the last 30 years might not strike you as needing such philosophical analysis, it is then paramount to detail some of Prey’s thematic elements from its story, where all this philosophy is at the forefront. It isn’t that Prey is such an obvious standout in its own genre gameplaywise but that it coalesces so seamlessly with its story-driven themes in fully artistic and emotional ways.
It is then of course no surprise that Chris Avellone helped write this game alongside Raphaël Colantonio and Ricardo Bare (Prey’s director and lead designer respectively), for Avellone’s magnum opus Planescape: Torment is centered around the principle question, “What can change the nature of a man?” and it has a definitive answer: choice. Prey follows this path, not in a derivative way, but in the same philosophical fashion. According to the philosopher Gilles Deleuze, the foundational aspect of our reality is that of difference, in this regard the entire notion of a Being, or anything static, or any notion of a true self or an essence is shattered and disposed of. All we are, all there is, is Becoming. Identity is forgone in the place of a multiplicity of difference and any repetitions will always be different; change is the only constant, as the character January states near the end of the game, “the ‘real’ Morgan is a fiction.” The process of Becoming is integral; it is not that Morgan Yu is there to be a measly projection, there are far too many videos and audiologs of them to be considered a blank slate character, it is that with every action they take Morgan becomes someone new — it is difference all the way down.
This underlying ontology gives way to a system of ethics as well, which is most notably present in how the game goes about its main quest and endings that January, Alex Yu, Dr. Igwe, and Mikhaila Ilyushin all play their respective parts in. Prey makes use of the trolley problem — a notoriously boring thought experiment that exists to make utilitarians think too highly of themselves — in a thought-provoking way. Which is frankly speaking revolutionary. While the more overarching elements are not something I can delve into without taking Prey’s climactic catharsis away from anyone reading this who hasn’t played it yet — the ethical parts of Prey are just as present in its side content. Talos I, the setting of Prey, has one very striking difference to the Immersive Sim in Space that it owes its existence to: humans who aren’t dead the second the game begins. Another revolutionary design choice from Arkane. How you choose to interact with these struggling survivors is going to define you, to the point that if you play the game “empathetically” you will receive an achievement titled “I and Thou,” which I will eat a shoe if that is somehow not a direct reference to Martin Buber’s book of the same name. Side quests where you can find Mikhaila’s medicine or get a piano recording so Dr. Igwe can hold onto a song that he and his now-dead wife loved, to helping a stuck escape pod launch all exist to reflect your approach to Talos I and a seemingly unstoppable threat that has the potential to reach Earth and likely drive humanity to extinction. All throughout these side quests you will receive radio transmissions from January, the most extreme deontologist in fiction, commenting on your behavior. It’s a small station, orbiting a moon that orbits an even bigger world. Who are you, who are these people, in the face of a threat this large? Should you be taking all these diversions to give them comfort, especially if this robot with your voice wants you to blow up the whole place? Well, you’re a human, aren’t you? The choice is yours.
While much of Prey uses high-concept philosophy to get across its sci-fi adventure, it is in these moments of humanity where the game truly shines. There is much art that falls on its face for trying to intellectualize itself, combining theory with fiction in a way that is fun to experience is a difficult task, but Prey excels at it. In a medium that so often plays it safe, Prey goes as far as it can to question you. Our bodies are constructed by action, our perception is tied to the freedom this gives us, and so all we are left with is an endless sea of choices. We all stand on the precipice — anxiety becomes overwhelming in the face of it, but the task at hand is to push forward. These choices will constantly change us or be changed by us. You are not the same person you were yesterday. Neither was Morgan Yu.