New Peek At 'Prey' During Gamescom: Dead Space on Steroids

We’re at Gamescom in Cologne, Germany, where we got a chance to see some new gameplay footage from the upcoming title Prey, developed by Arkane studios. Although it was merely a 10-minute video, it was enough to get us seriously excited. Two weeks ago, Bethesda presented some gameplay video at Quakecon, and this was our chance to see the video first hand.

Prey is set on a space station called Talos I, and as soon as the demo started Morgan Yu, the protagonist, almost immediately faced the first enemy: a creepy four-legged Mimic. This Mimic was about the size of a house cat, and it’s the weakest enemy in the game, but throughout the video it showed up in large numbers to keep you on your toes. One of its abilities was that it could turn into certain objects, such as a trash can or a mug for stealth. At one point in the demo, Yu shot a trashcan, which turned out to be a Mimic, and then later (as a show of paranoia), shot another trash can that wasn’t a Mimic at all.

Yu can also absorb alien powers and make them his own by sticking a tool with needles into his eye (eek). One of these so-called “neuromods” was the Mimic’s power to turn into simple everyday objects, demonstrated by Yu's turning into a mug and rolling through the environment. Other powers are likely be revealed over the coming months, but note: the more neuromods that Yu uses, the easier it is for the aliens to find him, so it’s best to not go around absorbing every single power.

Later on, he picked up a GLOO gun, which is used to pin a handful of mimics into place. That isn’t the only use of the GLOO gun, though. At one point, Yu was stuck in an area and sprayed some glue along a wall to create a makeshift ramp so that he could scale the wall in order to get onto a balcony. He also used it to seal some burning gas pipes to clear a path through a hallway. There’s also another weapon called the recycler charge, which is a sort of grenade that pulled all objects and living things towards it, and turned them into crafting materials.

The final gameplay element that we saw was the ability to lurch heavy objects across a room, which Yu could use to smash into enemies or use as cover elsewhere in a room. In fact, he used the ability to fight off the Nightmare — a most appropriate name for the big and scary alien.

Throughout the demo, these elements were creatively used to achieve the goal of making it through the environment, and I wouldn’t say that I was bored watching it for a second. I got a Dead Space sensation from the game, but with a fresh set of enemies, stunning graphics, and gameplay that made me wish for more.