Luka Golubkin

"I know who you are, M. Yu... Son/Daughter of William Yu. William. TranStar... always playing with lives. Now... maybe I watch these beasts eat you. Like you tried to feed me to them. Or... cold kills you first. Make you into a frozen puppet."

- Luka to Morgan Yu

Luka Golubkin is an escaped volunteer and murderer aboard Talos I. His volunteer ID is V-010655-37 and his Volunteer code sign is Volunteer 37.

Background
Golubkin is a convicted Russian murderer. Like many other "Volunteers" on Talos I, he volunteered to be a test subject for Morgan Yu's research in lieu of life in prison.

At one point, Golubkin was exposed to a Typhon telepath. The telepath refused to colonize Golubkin's mind and in fact developed an aversion to him.

Through neuromods, Golubkin was given the culinary skills of Will Mitchell, the chef of Talos I. When the player first encounters Golubkin, he will ask the player to retrieve a cooking award from Will Mitchell's quarters. Golubkin probably inherited Mitchell's emotional attachment to this award.

The neuromods also gave Golubkin a psychic awareness of the looming Typhon threat. Like Morgan Yu, he sensed that in deep space there was some malevolent and ravenous organism, and that Yu's experiments were drawing it to Earth. The staff in the Volunteer Quarters observed that he spent hours silently rocking in his chair, haunted by his disturbing visions.

Prey (2017)
Golubkin is first encountered in the Crew Quarters, where he masquerades as the station's chef, Will Mitchell. Golubkin will try to trap the player in the kitchen freezer as retribution for the experiments he suffered. Upon escaping the freezer Luka has seemingly left the Crew Quarters. He rigged the side-door with a recycle mine with intentions to kill you if you escaped and notes his disappointment when it does not.

Danielle Sho is the first person to make the request for the player to kill Golubkin for murdering her girlfriend, Abigail Foy. The player can thereafter find Golubkin in an escape pod at the Escape Pod Bay on the Talos I Bridge. He will try to lure the player into the pod and kill them both with a recycler charge. Even if the player spots and disarms the charge, Golubkin will commit suicide anyway by poison. However, it is possible to render him unconscious with a disruptor gun and unlike other NPCs he will remain unconscious for the rest of the game.

Personality and skills
Golubkin is a violent and unstable man. He bit off the fingers of Dr. Mitsuko Tokaji, a researcher on Talos I, and ground them up so that they could not be reattached. He developed a hatred of TranStar and its employees because of experiments they did on him.

Golubkin was very proficient at smuggling contraband into the station's prison system. This included some rather dangerous materials such as recycler charges. He also has expertise in crafting mines, which he learned while being in Ukraine.

It is also hinted he is a cannibal with how he stores the bodies in the freezer and the man he is impersonating is in a box labeled "mystery meat" with the real Will Mitchell's ID braclet.

Quests

 * The Cook's Request
 * Danielle Sho (Quest)
 * The Impostor Cook

Trivia

 * The player is able to kill Luka immediately after he gives you access to the Kitchen. These leads Danielle Sho to thank you instead of starting the quest.
 * It is implied that Luka also killed other TranStar employees before making his way to the Crew Quarters. Most notably Robert Gage who's body can be found near the Volunteer Quarters, with his Audio Log stating that "Someone is coming"
 * If you talk to Luka while he is still impersonating Will Mitchell, he tells Morgan that they can eat the food, but it "tastes like eels, and something else" possibly referring to human meat.
 * There are multiple instance when it is hinted that Luka is not who he claims to be. Most notably, he does not recognize Morgan Yu despite Morgan not only being an executive of Talos I, but also having helped create Skillet specifically for Will Mitchell.
 * You also can find the Audio Log "Operator Skillet" which reveals Will Mitchell's true face.
 * Although Luka impersonates Talos I's chief, he wears a red and black suit rather than a brown and black one. Since red suits on Talos I are reserved only to executive staff such as the Yus, it is likely that he stole his suit from Alex Yu, who has the same corpulence as Luka.
 * In Luka's original concept art, his suit is orange and white, which is reserved to engineering staff.