Prey (2017)

Prey (2017) is a first-person shooter video game developed by Arkane Studios and published by Bethesda Softworks. Originally developed by Human Head Studios, the game would have been the sequel to the 2006 video game Prey, The game resurfaced in 2016 as a "reimagining of the IP", with Arkane Studios Austin office being the game's lead developer. The game was released for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One on May 5 2017.

Gameplay
Prey is a first-person shooter with role-playing game elements and strong narrative, inspired by System Shock 2. The player takes the role of Morgan Yu, a human aboard a space station with numerous hostile aliens. The player will be able to select certain attributes of Yu, including gender, and decision made by the player will affect elements of the game's story. To survive, the player controls Yu to collect and use weapons and resources aboard the station to fend off and defeat the aliens. Prey will not be an open-world game but will feature open-level gameplay similar to Arkane's Dishonored

Plot
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.

Development
On 12 June 2016, Bethesda announced at their E3 press conference a reboot of Prey, also titled Prey. The game's development is currently led by Arkane Studios CEO and director Raphael Colantonio and his team in Austin. More infomation on the game is set to be revealed at QuakeCon 2016. Chris Avellone has also confirmed to be working on the project. The new Prey is not a true sequel but instead a "a reimagining of the IP", according to Colantonio. The teaser trailer shown during E3 2016 showed the game's protagonist in something like "a space horror version of Groundhog Day", according to CNet's Seamus Byrne. Bethesda's vice president of marketing Pete Hines explained that the new game has no elements from the cancelled Prey 2 outside of the player facing against aliens. Hines explained that Arkane evaluated the Prey property to its core and built up a new game around it, calling it more a psychological game rather than a horror one.

Trivia

 * The plot is similar to the Rick and Morty episode "M. Night Shaym-Aliens!", in which the main characters also find themselves trapped in a simulation within a simulation.