Prey

Prey is a sci-fi immersive sim set aboard the space station Talos I in an alternate history where the space program never let up. Morgan Yu wakes up into a day already lived several times over and quickly discovers the station has been taken over by the Typhon, faceless alien organisms with no comprehensible motive, understood only through what they do. The best known of them, the mimic, can transform into any object, so over time the player starts suspecting every chair and coffee mug in the room, and before entering an office would rather throw a key inside first.

Gameplay is built around free exploration of one large, interconnected station with no artificial division into levels. Every problem has multiple solutions: a door can be opened with a password found in an email, shot open, bypassed through a vent, or a path can be built up a wall with the GLOO cannon. Neuromods grant human and alien abilities, though using them has consequences for the station's defence systems, which start to treat the player as a target. Materials are recycled and printed at fabrication stations, so managing resources matters as much as shooting. Combat is deliberately tense, and a weaker player is often better off running.

Talos I is one of the best-designed game locations of its era: art deco office interiors, laboratories, an arboretum, and a free excursion into the vacuum around the station form a place the player remembers by heart after a few hours and can navigate even without a map. The sound design works with silence and sudden shocks, and the music blends synthesizers with restless motifs. On Xbox One the game holds a solid pace, though loading accompanies transitions between decks. Reception was very good, sales more middling, yet Prey built a strong reputation among genre fans. Today it stands as one of the best-written and most free-form sci-fi games there is, and its ending, which retroactively reframes everything before it, remains one of the most discussed in the genre.