What little has been shown of Prey so far takes quite a few blatant cues from BioShock, most obviously the alt-history setting and the Art Déco-inspired visual style (there's even a quite familiar scene where the player walks up a set of stairs, and a trash bin comes tumbling towards them). One could also argue that it nabs the shapeshifting, tar-like aliens the from Irrational's canned XCOM shooter that was later redeveloped by 2K Marin as The Bureau: XCOM Declassified, albeit that seems a bit more far-fetched.
Now here's the thing: Prey was openly announced as another spiritual successor to System Shock (including a shout-out to Looking Glass Studios in one of the PR demo loading screens) - not a single word was hitherto wasted on BioShock, which of course in itself was supposed to be the next System Shock, but in the eyes of many failed to live up to its heritage due to being a mechanical downgrade. Prey on the other hand brings back key core mechanics, such as the grid-based inventory, and a proper, non-linear skill tree, thus making it abundantly clear what it aspires to be.
This troper has a sneaking suspicion that Arkane were at least pretty damn disappointed in Irrational's work, and in the process of creating Prey decided to stick the finger to Levine and his now-defunct team, basically saying "We can do better than you". Which of course still remains to be proven, as does this very theory.
- Although this theory is still unproven, what can be proven is that prey is a better, more true to System Shock 2 successor.
In Bioshock Infinite, Elizabeth reveals that Columbia and Rapture are both parts of the same infinite multiverse. She states that "There's always a lighthouse, a man, and a city" and while it might be considered stretching those criteria, the space station in Prey resembles a giant lighthouse in space, is as big as a city and the player character can be a man, but also consider that the "man" part could just as easily refer to the antagonist, Andrew Ryan, Comstock... Alex Yu.
Also, Dishonored is obviously part of the same multiverse, as your base of operations is a lighthouse, Dunwall is a city and Corvo and antagonist Havelock are both men. Fitting System shock in shouldn’t be overly difficult following the same logic jumps.
- Jossed, although January states that Morgan anticipated it and had a contingency hidden in the Talos-1 systems for two situations: being betrayed by Alex and the aliens breaking containment. As January says, "both happened."
- The other survivors aren't really clued in to what Alex and Morgan planned, and their e-mails say as much. However, Morgan's plan, as presented by January, involves destroying the entire space station, with Morgan still on board.
- Jossed. The only human characters to try and kill you is Walther Dahl, who is not a survivor, but rather a specialist from earth, who is sent by William Yu (your father) to secure all the research from Talos 1 and kill all the survivors to ensure there is no witness, and Alex Yu at the twist ending, when you prove yourself to be a human hating abomination and Alex's plan to give you mirror neuron to make the typhon feel empathy has failed.
- It is. Earth has been devoured by Typhon, and Alex Yu is trying to implant memory of real Morgan Yu into a mimic to create a communication method with Typhon.
Just look at the bit where they ask Morgan to hide in a mostly empty room. A mimic's natural inclination would have been to mimic the chair, but the scientists sound intrigued if the player crouches behind the chair. If you throw the chair the scientists begin getting worried about glass breaking. Given how cutting edge the lab is suppose to be, why would the scientists be worry about a ordinary human being able to break glass designed to keep the subject and the observers separated?
- The player/Morgan will get an optional neuromod upgrade that lets for shapeshifting. Yes, Morgan can at least become a mimic if not born one.
Speaking of separated, why simulate a sprawling city for Morgan, including a faked helicopter ride? An email mentions a violent outburst from the subject of some experiment. The subject is not named but its memory of the event is gone by the next set of tests. Why have the alarm clock in Morgan's apartment read the same day every time they wake up? sounds like they're stuck with anterograde amnesia and someone is taking care not to disturb them with that knowledge.
- When removed Neuromods reset the brain, Morgan probably took a neuromod that day that made it necessary for them to reset his memories and redo the day so that he'd be able to function at peak efficiency
- Jossed, jossed, jossed. Our Morgan was born a Mimic, and Alex's ultimate scheme was trying to see if Typhon could be taught to live in peace with humans.
- The first story in the timeline has to be Riley Yu's, where she test-fires the kill towers. This clearly takes place well before the outbreak, by days or possibly even years.
- Next is most likely to be the beginning of Joan's story, where she kills a scientist. Since he's in his office as normal, this would appear to take place just before or just after the outbreak. I would speculate that it takes place just after the alarm is raised. The threat finally pushes Joan to drastic action to locate Brian Chung, because if she doesn't try and find him before they evacuate, it's likely she won't ever meet him again. Ironically, this probably saves her life if the vast amount of dead bodies by the shuttle is any indication. There's no way to tell how long her story takes, but she would have to break into highly secure areas, so definitely after the security have abandon Pytheas labs.
- After that, Claire's, because her story has to take place right before Vijay's. Since the security team is after her rather than fighting the typhon, this has to take place pretty much right about when the typhon break loose, any later and all security personnel would be redirected to fight the typhon. She's probably in a similar situation to Joan, not expecting the typhon but taking advantage of the chaos to pursue her own goals.
- Which is followed immediately by Vijay's story. There's even room for overlap with Claire's story depending on how long it takes him to shake off his hangover and get down to the moonworks. This is also our first confirmed character death. Claire is down.
- The next event is Andrius' story. Starting his story skips the corruption level to 4, regardless of what it was on before. Presumably this is to indicate that there is canonically much higher numbers of typhon in the station at this point after having fed on all the crew. So this takes place well into the outbreak. At the end of his story, Andrius dies.
- Additionally, Vijay dies some time after killing Claire, but before the next point in the timeline. We know this because his dead body can be found and tracked from a security station. Since the simulation is built from records on the data vault operator, then the station must have had records of Vijay's death before the vault operator as ejected into space.
- The very last event we see must be Riley's "escape", where she backs up all the base records and herself. We know this has to be the last event we witness because of the nature of the game as a simulation. Since everything we see is part of a simulation created by the records that Riley saves in this sequence, which she then shoots into space, then any event that happens after this can't be a part of the simulation, because the sim has no records of it. Due to sabotage, Riley dies in the act of doing this. Sort of.
- So in summary, Claire dies first. We don't know how long Vijay lasts after killing Claire, but if he dies to Claire's toxin, then not long. But it could be that he holds out for a while, possibly outliving Andrius but due to the fact that the data vult operator has records of him being dead, then he must die before Riley. Which leaves only Joan. She's the only one who isn't confirmed dead. Curiously, she can't be tracked through a security station, but neither does it say that she's dead. Which leaves two possibilities: firstly, that she's still alive and hiding on Pytheas when Riley uploads herself, or secondly, that she actually escaped and is out of the tracking bracelet's range. Both are possible. With a fabricator and some turrets, she could hold out for quite some time if she chose the right spot to defend, until a technopath comes along at least. But it's not likely that she escaped. Mainly because only one escape route would work for her. Escape pods are out, Andrius and Claire saw to that. The mimic portal requires Claire and Joan to cooperate, which is highly unlikely. Only Riley can upload herself. And she can't have escaped in the shuttle because it's still there when Peter crashes near Pytheas at the end of the game. Which leaves only the mass driver. It's more likely that she dies on Pytheas just like everybody else, but she is the one who holds out longest. But there is a slim chance, which would make her Pytheas' one and only survivor.
- One point of contention: there's no reason to assume the shuttle taking Peter to Earth is the one from Pytheas. Indeed, I rather doubt it, as KASMA putting his satellite right near Pytheas is just asking to get it noticed. Peter seems to have been shuttled home from the Moon colony.
- They followed the nuke ending, destroying Talos. Either a small number of survivors escaped on the shuttle, or Alex alone escaped in his own pod. Morgan either goes down with Talos or later perishes on Earth.
- They deployed the nullwave, saving Talos. If they are dead in this scenario, they must have died on Earth.
At the end the impression is given that the Operators with Alex are the uploaded minds of the characters speaking. But of the four characters only Igwe seems likely to want to upload himself, with the other three being opposed to the Typhon based tech in various ways. While it's possible they had a change of heart I think it's more likely that they are still alive and human and remote operating the Operators. This because putting all of them plus Alex into a room with a creature that may choose to kill them all would be deeply stupid. Alex being there may be considered an acceptable risk to establish trust but all of them would be an absurd risk.
The Typhon never seem to have seriously threatened a containment breach before, even though they've had plenty of opportunity - the original station was built around completely-uncontained Typhon, yet they don't seem to have caused any problems for it at all. Why did they suddenly become a threat? Well, they would need to have someone directing them. A mind capable of actually understanding their situation rather than just reacting to it reflexively the way lesser Typhon seem to. A mind that understands humanity well enough to subvert the available defenses, and with enough influence over the station to get the Typhon to earth despite the numerous security procedures. A mind like the real Morgan Yu, who repeatedly exposed themselves to Typhon neuromods and was clearly fascinated with the Typhon to begin with. In the real-world timeline, Morgan went through a plot arc that mirrors the players', but in the opposite direction. Possibly in reality the reason they were wiped and imprisoned was because Alex Yu realized they were a threat; but they were eventually able to - consciously or subconsciously - direct the Typhon and escape. What happened to real!Morgan is deliberately vague in the game, because nobody wants to tell you that they are leading the Typhon. Likewise, when you hear that voice in the moments where the simulation nearly fails, telling you to side with the Typhon, it sounds like Morgan. When first playing through you might think it's your own internal voice - but why would a Typhon have Morgan's voice representing their inner self? No, it's the real Morgan talking to you through the link they use to command the Typhon. This also explains why Alex wanted to turn a Typhon into Morgan specifically - they need someone who understands how Morgan thinks and who can potentially contest Morgan's control over the Typhon.