History YMMV / PROTOTYPE

** Also a successor to the ''[[VideoGame/UltimateSpiderMan2005 Ultimate Spider-Man]]'' game, in a way. The two were developed by the same people, and it's impossible to not notice the similarities if you've played the other one. Alex's running animation is ''identical'' to Spider-Man's. His charged jump is ''identical'' to Venom's superjump. His throw is ''identical'' to Venom's throw. Finally, his tentacle attacks are ''identical'' to Venom's tentacle attacks... except for some of the Devastator moves, which are identical to Carnage's attacks.
** In large part also to ''Spider-Man 2: TheMovie'', the game. The setting in Manhattan, the Landmark objectives (although the Spider-Man ones only gave a BraggingRightsReward), the various optional events to collect points, the LeParkour gameplay, the WideOpenSandbox world, these can all be traced back at least this far.
** This game is rather similar to ''VideoGame/{{Spiderman Web Of Shadows}}'', which came out approximately a year before this game. Both games are by Activision, both start with ATasteOfPower shortly before the plot ends, both have a ZombieApocalypse going on in NY, in both cases it is the fault of the protagonist to a certain degree, in both cases the protagonist gains dark/evil powers. Even the attacks are very similar, with combat tentacles, body surf attack etc. The Symbiotes are even pretty similar to some of the infected and Spidey's black suit's gameplay and attacks are rather similar to Alex's attacks in the game. Heck, the two games even have a similar plot: New York, or at least part of New York, is under quarantine for an epidemic that gives people superpowers but also turns them into monstrous creatures. Spidey and Alex are both infected (Spidey with his black suit, Alex with Blacklight). [[BigBad Venom and Elizabeth Greene]] even have the same goal: To infect the entire world. [[spoiler:Also, the final boss battles of both games both take place on a gray-colored military ship/carrier of sorts.]] Both games also take place in a free roam open world environment and both New Yorks get more and more apocalyptic as the game goes on, which gives them a rather similar background esthetic.

** "[[HumanoidAbomination Alex Mercer]]" is the [[TheVirus Blacklight virus]], which took the form and memories of the real Alex Mercer after he died. Awakening with no memories of his true origin, Alex starts to uncover it, thwarting Blackwatch operations along the way, saving and caring for his sister [[MoralityPet Dana]], and even saving Manhattan from getting destroyed by a nuke. Growing disappointed with humanity [[VideoGame/Prototype2 afterwards]], Alex decided to create a better world by wiping out humanity and replacing them with the "Evolved", people mutated with Blacklight which gives them similar powers. Creating the second outbreak by releasing the Blacklight virus upon New York and turning several people into Evolved, Alex had them infiltrate Blackwatch, which allowed him to manipulate the entire organization and use their resources for his own end. Infecting James Heller and turning him into an Evolved, Alex manages to briefly manipulate him and then corrupts the Whitelight cure, causing it to mutate people into Evolved instead of curing the virus. When James foils that scheme, Alex decides to kidnap his daughter instead, hoping to use her to [[AssimilationPlot infect the entire world]].
** [[EvilCounterpart The Supreme Hunter]] is the ultimate creation of [[DiscOneFinalBoss Elizabeth Greene]], who gained sentience after being defeated by Alex Mercer. Regenerating itself, the Supreme Hunter, at some point in time, tracked down and consumed Captain Robert Cross, [[KillAndReplace taking his form and fooling everyone around it]] into trusting it. Manipulating Alex Mercer into eliminating key Blackwatch figures, before it used him to get close to General Randall to make sure Randall activated the nuke that was intended to wipe out Manhattan. Allowing Alex to consume Randall, The Supreme Hunter revealed itself to Alex, announcing its intention to consume Alex to empower itself to survive the explosion, to make the whole world to believe it is dead, while it can start to [[{{Plaguemaster}} spread the virus]] somewhere else again.

** "[[MonstrousHumanoid Alex Mercer]]" is the [[TheVirus Blacklight virus]], which took the form and memories of the real Alex Mercer after he died. Awakening with no memories of his true origin, Alex starts to uncover it, thwarting Blackwatch operations along the way, saving and caring for his sister [[MoralityPet Dana]], and even saving Manhattan from getting destroyed by a nuke. Growing disappointed with humanity [[VideoGame/Prototype2 afterwards]], Alex decided to create a better world by wiping out humanity and replacing them with the "Evolved", people mutated with Blacklight which gives them similar powers. Creating the second outbreak by releasing the Blacklight virus upon New York and turning several people into Evolved, Alex had them infiltrate Blackwatch, which allowed him to manipulate the entire organization and use their resources for his own end. Infecting James Heller and turning him into an Evolved, Alex manages to briefly manipulate him and then corrupts the Whitelight cure, causing it to mutate people into Evolved instead of curing the virus. When James foils that scheme, Alex decides to kidnap his daughter instead, hoping to use her to [[AssimilationPlot infect the entire world]].

* FandomRivalry: There's only ''VideoGame/{{Prototype}}'' '''OR''' ''VideoGame/{{inFamous}}'' -- apparently, you're NOT allowed to like both. Which is all the more ironic that the Devs went the FriendlyRival route.

* CommonKnowledge: The story has a few holes and is rather [[{{Collectathon}} arduous]] to see in its entirety, so players tend to go to the wiki to piece things together. Unfortunately, the wiki gets a lot of things wrong (often things that were mentioned in pre-release materials but dropped from the game), but the story presented there is probably more often-repeated than the one presented in-game.

* MoralEventHorizon: [[spoiler:Alex Mercer, both for his work in making the Blacklight virus, which was nasty enough before he got there, TEN TIMES as lethal as before. Also for unleashing it when cornered by Blackwatch after he stole a sample.]] [[VideoGameCrueltyPotential The player themselves can gleefully slaughter anyone they please]], though civilians don't net you any EP unless they're infected. As well as [[spoiler:Blackwatch infecting Hope, Idaho for no better reason than to test out the virus on people.]] ''Even [[spoiler:the virus itself]]'' [[EvenEvilHasStandards is disgusted by the actions of]] [[spoiler:Alex Mercer and the higher-ups of Blackwatch]].

** There is no "Redlight Virus." The virus is always called Blacklight in the main story, and variants in the Web of Intrigue are specified as "DX-1118 [Letter]." Operation: REDLIGHT is actually the code name for the military occupation of New York. A trailer for ''VideoGame/Prototype2'' which recapped the first game's story didn't mention Redlight and was criticized as being an example of the new writers' lack of respect for the lore, but the trailer actually got it right.

** Also a successor to the ''VideoGame/UltimateSpiderMan'' game, in a way. The two were developed by the same people, and it's impossible to not notice the similarities if you've played the other one. Alex's running animation is ''identical'' to Spider-Man's. His charged jump is ''identical'' to Venom's superjump. His throw is ''identical'' to Venom's throw. Finally, his tentacle attacks are ''identical'' to Venom's tentacle attacks... except for some of the Devastator moves, which are identical to Carnage's attacks.

* CommonKnowledge: The story has a few holes and is rather [[{{Collectathon}} arduous]] to see in its entirety, so players tend to go to [[TheWikiRule the wiki]] to piece things together. Unfortunately, the wiki gets a lot of things wrong (often things that were mentioned in pre-release materials but dropped from the game), but the story presented there is probably more often-repeated than the one presented in-game.