|
In the base game, is there evidence on the station alluding to what's really going on? I did December's mission to steal Alex's escape pod and the game over made it obvious Morgan was in another simulation. Are there other strong hints? Before that, I had a strong idea what was up after visiting the bridge and noticing the display it was a looking glass screen rather than a window. I don't think that was supposed to be a surprising reveal, but combined with all the other stuff about Morgan not being able to trust themselves, it seemed clear the simulation hadn't actually ended in the first act.
|
#
?
Jun 14, 2023 06:32
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 8, 2024 15:15 |
|
|
You get very brief (like two to three second) flashes of commotion and distant voices at key plot points. But no, the game is not particularly subtle about its twist. The real twist is the nature of the obvious twist.
|
|
#
?
Jun 14, 2023 08:19
|
|
|
Vivian Darkbloom posted:In the base game, is there evidence on the station alluding to what's really going on? I did December's mission to steal Alex's escape pod and the game over made it obvious Morgan was in another simulation. Are there other strong hints? Before that, I had a strong idea what was up after visiting the bridge and noticing the display it was a looking glass screen rather than a window. I don't think that was supposed to be a surprising reveal, but combined with all the other stuff about Morgan not being able to trust themselves, it seemed clear the simulation hadn't actually ended in the first act. I didn't think the bridge screens were a giveaway: iirc you can spot (and possibly even go and mess with?) the little satellites the cameras are mounted on, so it's an in-universe system. Even if I've misremembered the details there, realistically it's a good idea to have your command centre as deep in the station and as protected as possible. Remote feeds and no windows does make sense in that context.
|
|
#
?
Jun 14, 2023 08:56
|
|
|
Yeah Star Wars/Trek style command bridges on large spaceships/stations with literal windows that are juicy targets for A-Wings/emo children are very silly when you think about them for more than 5 seconds but are obviously a continuation of the design language we're used to from big boats.
|
|
#
?
Jun 14, 2023 09:25
|
|
|
Vivian Darkbloom posted:In the base game, is there evidence on the station alluding to what's really going on? I did December's mission to steal Alex's escape pod and the game over made it obvious Morgan was in another simulation. Are there other strong hints? Before that, I had a strong idea what was up after visiting the bridge and noticing the display it was a looking glass screen rather than a window. I don't think that was supposed to be a surprising reveal, but combined with all the other stuff about Morgan not being able to trust themselves, it seemed clear the simulation hadn't actually ended in the first act. There's also the log where Alex says basically hey we want to try experimenting on a typhon to see if we can make one have empathy and understand us, if only we had some way to train it so that it could have a link between our worlds. Almost everyone I know who guessed the twist did it there.
|
|
#
?
Jun 14, 2023 09:28
|
|
|
Butterfly Valley posted:Yeah Star Wars/Trek style command bridges on large spaceships/stations with literal windows that are juicy targets for A-Wings/emo children are very silly when you think about them for more than 5 seconds but are obviously a continuation of the design language we're used to from big boats. Is funny because with all that tech they could just slap a big screen that acted like a window instead of a literal window.
|
|
#
?
Jun 14, 2023 09:51
|
|
|
Vivian Darkbloom posted:In the base game, is there evidence on the station alluding to what's really going on? I did December's mission to steal Alex's escape pod and the game over made it obvious Morgan was in another simulation. Are there other strong hints? Before that, I had a strong idea what was up after visiting the bridge and noticing the display it was a looking glass screen rather than a window. I don't think that was supposed to be a surprising reveal, but combined with all the other stuff about Morgan not being able to trust themselves, it seemed clear the simulation hadn't actually ended in the first act. I was suspecting something odd was going on when the Typhon muttered things early in the game that were said by humans later on. The... 'huh?'-ness of that made me suspect something more was happening, even if I wasn't sure what it was.
|
|
#
?
Jun 14, 2023 10:16
|
|
|
Guillermus posted:Is funny because with all that tech they could just slap a big screen that acted like a window instead of a literal window. Actually to be fair in the star wars universe, or at least the original trilogy, a lot of the tech is analogue and they never tried to make it look too futuristic - so you have lightspeed etc but it's grounded with lots of physical buttons knobs and switches, the holograms look janky and you don't get nice big digital displays of anything really, so I can understand it there, especially given the WW2 aesthetic they were going for with the combat.
|
|
#
?
Jun 14, 2023 12:26
|
|
|
aniviron posted:There's also the log where Alex says basically hey we want to try experimenting on a typhon to see if we can make one have empathy and understand us, if only we had some way to train it so that it could have a link between our worlds. Almost everyone I know who guessed the twist did it there. I might be misremembering since I'm way overdue for another playthrough, but I believe there's also a weird log you can find (somewhere near the room with the "not a mimic" sticky notes, iirc) that details another scientist's proposal for the means of achieving that, and it sounds kinda weird and abrupt when the conversation ends with Alex going "nah we're not devoting resources to this." I wondered about that at the time, and ever since seeing the ending I've had a pet theory that that log (i.e. the memory thereof) has been edited to remove statements which would immediately make the captive Typhon realize it's in a simulation.
|
|
#
?
Jun 14, 2023 13:32
|
|
|
My experience was unique in that I played the intro to see if the game ran well on my PC, then the initial swerve went down and I was sucked in for a couple of hours. Then I put the game down and forgot about it for a year or two, during which time I heard there was a contentious twist and was able to very easily put 2 and 2 together.
|
|
#
?
Jun 14, 2023 13:40
|
|
|
Guillermus posted:Is funny because with all that tech they could just slap a big screen that acted like a window instead of a literal window. You don't impress investors with monitors! You gotta put poo poo like penthouse windows and gargoyles on your space station!
|
|
#
?
Jun 14, 2023 13:40
|
|
|
Twobirds posted:You don't impress investors with monitors! You gotta put poo poo like penthouse windows and gargoyles on your space station! And a Casino, and hookers!
|
|
#
?
Jun 14, 2023 13:56
|
|
|
Vivian Darkbloom posted:In the base game, is there evidence on the station alluding to what's really going on? I did December's mission to steal Alex's escape pod and the game over made it obvious Morgan was in another simulation. Are there other strong hints? Before that, I had a strong idea what was up after visiting the bridge and noticing the display it was a looking glass screen rather than a window. I don't think that was supposed to be a surprising reveal, but combined with all the other stuff about Morgan not being able to trust themselves, it seemed clear the simulation hadn't actually ended in the first act. https://prey.fandom.com/wiki/RE:_Implant_mirror_neurons_in_Typhons%3F https://prey.fandom.com/wiki/Project_Cobalt https://prey.fandom.com/wiki/Proxies,_Agents,_and_Personhood There's also the various cutscenes when you touch coral
|
|
#
?
Jun 14, 2023 14:04
|
|
|
Angry Diplomat posted:I might be misremembering since I'm way overdue for another playthrough, but I believe there's also a weird log you can find (somewhere near the room with the "not a mimic" sticky notes, iirc) that details another scientist's proposal for the means of achieving that, and it sounds kinda weird and abrupt when the conversation ends with Alex going "nah we're not devoting resources to this." I wondered about that at the time, and ever since seeing the ending I've had a pet theory that that log (i.e. the memory thereof) has been edited to remove statements which would immediately make the captive Typhon realize it's in a simulation. It wasn’t just a random scientist, Morgan wanted to do it. It was a big disagreement between the Yus. If I recall there’s even a tired comment from Alex later on about how he could never really say no to his sibling, so either logs of him agreeing was scrubbed or they took the conversation offline and Morgan finally wore him down. And yeah that log was where I started to seriously ponder if the game was going in the direction it did, even though I didn’t get December’s ending. Edit: once you’ve seen the ending, do yourself a favor and start a new game and just play for like 10 minutes. The scientists performing the “onboarding” tutorial/psychological testing have reactions that hit way different when you have the full scope of things. Tortolia fucked around with this message at 14:11 on Jun 14, 2023 |
|
#
?
Jun 14, 2023 14:05
|
|
|
I forget, is it possible to go into the testing with NG+ psi powers and actually succeed?
|
|
#
?
Jun 14, 2023 14:12
|
|
|
Hwurmp posted:I forget, is it possible to go into the testing with NG+ psi powers and actually succeed? No, you don't get your powers back until you reach your office, however you can return to the testing suite once you have the right powers, retake the test and get some bonus neuromods 
|
|
#
?
Jun 14, 2023 14:24
|
|
|
I finally worked my way through this, after starting back in 2017, getting 20 minutes in, and then forgetting about Prey and waiting 6 years to go back. Wow. What a work of art. The early game mimic tension. The late game ruin of the coral webbed station. The Trolley Problem(s). Sorry, Shuttle Advent crew. I really felt bad about that. I went in completely blind, and even though I figured out a fair few of the smaller twists, I thought my Morgan was a clone of the real deal, and not Valatar posted:My money's on this too. Like the ending rolls and 'Morgan' takes off that big d20 space helmet and holy gently caress you've been a typhon the whole time, injected with human memories. WHAT A TWIST. Sadly the ending on pretty much all the Shock games are rubbish, so I'm willing to deal with a disappointment on that front as long as the game up to that point is good. Goddamn Nostradamus over there posting before the game even released.
|
|
#
?
Jun 15, 2023 11:24
|
|
|
Twobirds posted:You don't impress investors with monitors! You gotta put poo poo like penthouse windows and gargoyles on your space station! Cathedral or gently caress right off.
|
|
#
?
Jun 15, 2023 11:34
|
|
|
I think the ending's good enough. I also liked "the hacker just loves hacking so despite the horrors of Citadel, he's right back to it" and "nah" (ignoring the stupid 'Shodan can possess people' stinger) from SS1/2.
|
|
#
?
Jun 15, 2023 21:12
|
|
|
I kinda called it, but think the ending was fine despite the huge telegraphing they do through the game. I find the shocklikes are much stronger in the feeling they evoke through the gameplay than in their storylines, and Prey has a really strong environment that stands up well with its peers. Especially in how it diverges from the "loving everybody is dead" setups in System Shock and Bioshock so you do manage to encounter survivors sorta regulary, but it still manages to have a pretty isolated feeling.
|
|
#
?
Jun 15, 2023 21:33
|
|
|
I like that it's less of a 'twist' and more like a gameplay conceit. The twist in SS2 doesn't really make you think about what you're doing on a replay (other than maybe listening to Polito's emails a little differently), in Prey I think why did they design this particular part of the simulation like this?
|
|
#
?
Jun 15, 2023 21:47
|
|
|
Valatar posted:I kinda called it, but think the ending was fine despite the huge telegraphing they do through the game. I find the shocklikes are much stronger in the feeling they evoke through the gameplay than in their storylines, and Prey has a really strong environment that stands up well with its peers. Especially in how it diverges from the "loving everybody is dead" setups in System Shock and Bioshock so you do manage to encounter survivors sorta regulary, but it still manages to have a pretty isolated feeling. Being able to call the ending is what makes it work. I assume that a lot of the comparisons to Mass Effect 3 are from people who didn't see it coming.
|
|
#
?
Jun 15, 2023 21:51
|
|
|
At the very least there’s no real way to design the ending as though it wouldn’t be approached with metafictional knowledge imparted by the alternate ending. It’s an immersive sim, most players will go for the escape pod ending just to see what happens. There was no way to do the alt ending without tipping their hand any less than they did (unless they completely skirted the “twist” by some contrivance, which everyone would have rightfully hated). Again, the perspective conceit of the game is just one part of its context, and really the only part that’s heavily foreshadowed. It’s only with the “real ending(s)” that the full context informing the game is revealed. It’s where you learn the purpose of the conceit, which you can then apply to the choices you made. All in all it’s quite elegant.
|
|
#
?
Jun 16, 2023 00:40
|
|
|
The real twist is that the ending isn't actually talking to Morgan, but it's talking to you, the player directly, and trying to get you to evaluate the way you play and interact with games, but a worrying amount of people don't even realize it
|
|
#
?
Jun 16, 2023 00:49
|
|
|
I really don't think that it's supposed to be a twist, the ending doesn't make a lot of sense if it is. You basically have three outcomes, which are the phantom failing the test, the phantom passing the test and assuming Morgan's identity, or the phantom passing the test and choosing to kill Alex. That last option only makes sense if the phantom, at some point during the course of the game, became aware of its circumstances and decided to basically trick the people observing it. The only way that makes sense is if the phantom realized what was going on, and I think the implication is that it does figure it out, at least on some level. There are a number of moments where it experiences brief moments of lucidity and partially wakes up, like when it touches coral for the first time.
|
|
#
?
Jun 16, 2023 01:58
|
|
|
I think I saw the ending coming because the story beats are very similar to an old xbox game called Breakdown, although the twist in that is a little different.
|
|
#
?
Jun 16, 2023 04:02
|
|
|
prey does have a very good twist and it's in the introduction to the game. I've never really felt like the ending was supposed to be a similar big twist inasmuch as it's an extension of that original one
|
|
#
?
Jun 16, 2023 10:35
|
|
|
flatluigi posted:prey does have a very good twist and it's in the introduction to the game. I've never really felt like the ending was supposed to be a similar big twist inasmuch as it's an extension of that original one Yeah, the very start of the game is explicitly telling you to question whether everything you perceive is real or true.
|
|
#
?
Jun 16, 2023 10:43
|
|
|
I found the ending very unsatisfying, it drained all the enthusiasm I had left after the slog of the endgame and lessened my overall opinion of the game. A lot of the distaste faded with distance but it still makes me think less of the game. I've heard plenty of arguments as to why it works or why it's not bad or whatever, but none of them change the way I felt when I encountered the ending. And I've seen plenty of other people say the same. I think it's just the kind of risk you take when you do this kind of ending, no matter how well you decorate or twist it, you're still delivering a kind of thing that typically drains audience engagement with the story. I think games should be a lot more conservative with their endings in general. If I'm finishing your game I probably like it and all you have to do is not mess that up. If you stick the landing I'm going to primarily remember the fun I had up til then; if you mess up the ending it's going to overwhelmingly affect my opinion of the game. If you're thinking of padding out the game with backtracking or reusing assets, putting in some ending twist, or just not putting effort into the endgame I think you're taking a pretty bad risk. If Prey had just skipped the whole Dahl section and rolled credits as soon as you make the final choice I think it would be a better game simply because by the time you hit those points it's already done what it does best.
|
|
#
?
Jun 16, 2023 15:09
|
|
|
Building on the above and this:HenryEx posted:The real twist is that the ending isn't actually talking to Morgan, but it's talking to you, the player directly, and trying to get you to evaluate the way you play and interact with games, but a worrying amount of people don't even realize it Basically I find myself in a weird spot because I got exactly what they were going for (I even read the game as an intentional pastiche of the entire immersive sim genre)...but when it was all said and done I just didn't find it compelling at all. Like in that context the twist is to me actually self-defeating and comes off as trying to be overly clever, rather than profound. Maybe it's also because I already ruminate on the exact kind of questions it's trying to ask. Though my answer also tends to be "I wish immersive sims would stop getting so drat hung up on morality". John Murdoch fucked around with this message at 16:06 on Jun 16, 2023 |
|
#
?
Jun 16, 2023 16:04
|
|
|
It's more about empathy than morality. For the Typhon you play as to fail means it played the sim as if it were a psychopath, which is also what the person playing (you) did, to which the game asks "why did you do that?". Because it's a simulation and it doesn't matter? Probably what the Typhon thought too. Your choices matter to the story in that there is a failure state and expressing signs of empathy in your decision making and saying yes at the end is implied to save humanity. Does the problem stem from the simulation you exist in within the story not being "real", in which case do you need to be reminded you are playing a video game? This theme is echoed in the facade opening of the game too. Prey's story is great stuff. SCheeseman fucked around with this message at 17:08 on Jun 16, 2023 |
|
#
?
Jun 16, 2023 17:02
|
|
|
I think it would have more impact if they just saw my psycho behavior and failed me there instead of Alex's dumb rear end saying "I trust them."
|
|
#
?
Jun 16, 2023 17:04
|
|
|
Dyz posted:I think it would have more impact if they just saw my psycho behavior and failed me there instead of Alex's dumb rear end saying "I trust them." It can, though, iirc?
|
|
#
?
Jun 16, 2023 17:06
|
|
|
You can say a lot of things about Alex Yu but “he’s a man of unsound judgment” certainly could not be one of them.
|
|
#
?
Jun 16, 2023 17:06
|
|
|
You can make a few accidents or make some poor choices in the game and still get the good ending, not sure of whatever the formula is.
|
|
#
?
Jun 16, 2023 17:08
|
|
|
Im pretty sure on my kill all humans run they still let me make the choice at the end. Its been a few years tho.
|
|
#
?
Jun 16, 2023 17:08
|
|
|
Dyz posted:Im pretty sure on my kill all humans run they still let me make the choice at the end. Looks like you're right. I never got the outright bad ending, at most I got some scolding.
|
|
#
?
Jun 16, 2023 17:11
|
|
|
SCheeseman posted:It's more about empathy than morality. For the Typhon you play as to fail means it played the sim as if it were a psychopath, which is also what the person playing (you) did, to which the game asks "why did you do that?". I guess there might be something in the difference between a person who still feels bad doing bad things in a videogame even if the videogame itself is a sim of another fake reality, and players who don't feel bad at all and can enjoy being an imagined psychopath without self-consequences.
|
|
#
?
Jun 16, 2023 17:13
|
|
|
SCheeseman posted:Does the problem stem from the simulation you exist in within the story not being "real", in which case do you need to be reminded you are playing a video game? This theme is echoed in the facade opening of the game too. Partly, yes. Suspension of disbelief/mentally situating myself in the scenario is important. I'm playing a video game yes, but while I'm playing this video game I am Morgan Yu dealing with a Typhon infestation on Talos 1. For the duration of the game I'm behaving as though the scenario is real even though I know it isn't. I'm invested in the scenario. When you reveal the scenario was all fake, then I lose that investment. And then the game ends. So I'm left feeling empty where that investment used to be. They could have gotten away with it potentially if they revealed it earlier and then spent the rest of the game investing me in the new reality. But they didn't. For example I love the Princess Bride movie, which is just a grandfather reading a work of fiction to his grandson, but it sets it up at the beginning so you're in the right mental space for it. If the story thing had been a reveal at the end it would have been very jarring. I did do the alternate ending, but I thought it was a recreation, perhaps to try and rebuild/clone Morgan's last personality by rerunning the scenario until it aligned with what actually happened. Which preserves the reality of the scenario. The reveal could have been that you were running a simulation of what actually happened, that if you succeeded then what you just did was a recreation, instead of just a madlibs typhon version based on what Morgan did. If it was a recreation then what you did within the world mattered within that world because it's what actually happened. In the ending we got, nothing you did mattered because it was a pure simulation. And the character I am playing is some random typhon I have spent 0 time getting to know. You spend the whole game playing Morgan Yu only to wake up and realize that not only it was all essentially a dream, but you're not even the person you were in the dream. There's a meta narrative there that some people find cool, but it comes completely at cost of the main narrative. Keep in mind that everything above is a post-facto examination. I wasn't sitting there running thse thoughts through my mind until I decided the ending was not what I wanted. I felt it, and this is me figuring out why I think it happened.
|
|
#
?
Jun 16, 2023 18:27
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 8, 2024 15:15 |
|
|
Phigs posted:Partly, yes. But it is an attempt to try to rebuild/clone Morgan, and the simulation is a reconstruction of the events that actually transpired on Talos 1 they made using Morgan's own memories. Alex tells the player character that in the ending. They're using a Neuromod made from Morgan and injecting it into a phantom and then judging how well it adhered to Morgan's actions and rerunning the test until they get a satisfactory result. I wish that they hadn't cut Cazavor, or at least added it alongside Mooncrash. It really spelled a lot of the plot out even more clearly. turn off the TV fucked around with this message at 19:19 on Jun 16, 2023 |
|
#
?
Jun 16, 2023 18:58
|
|