Prey

There actually is some foreshadowing, but the problem is it's so subtle and with so few clues that I'm not surprised most people missed it.

But if you're wondering? There's three:

• The Argus station gets mentioned several times; both in some emails bounced around between the higher-ups such as Alex or the other Talos senior staff, and on the Bridge, where one of the pilots mention a story about running into an unknown shuttle that suffered engine problems but refused any sort of help, even threatening to take hostile action if approached.
• the Q-beam schematics being "stolen" from their designer and HR covering the issue up as the guy being paranoid and too defensive. Well, he actually is mentally unstable - there's a recording of him murdering his superior and claiming that he was trying to sabotage his career, but still, they actually were trying to steal his work.
• There's an employee on Talos whom is being given an unusually large paycheck... and nobody knows what the heck he does except for the HR director, Alex, and the psychiatrist. Not sure if that's actually Dahl himself, or just meant to imply that there was supposed to be a wetworks operator on Talos for any potential "bad days". Obviously that didn't work out as planned, if true.

The final clue is about how somebody has managed to infiltrate other Transtar corporate facilities by using the drones, since they can be programmed with hidden protocols, can be easily memory-wiped, and typically perform mundane utility duties all over the place.

edited 9th Oct '17 4:58:43 PM by SgtRicko

Extra Credits decided to analyze the game's ending in relation to that foreshadowing "test" you take at the beginning of the game. And their conclusion? Most people don't actually stick to what they said in the questions, in practice.

I always just spammed the test at random because it was obvious even then it didn't matter.

but I finally finished my no human mod run and got that sweet, sweet cheevo.

Now to kill all humans. Letting them die apparently counts, but honestly that seems even crueller, so i'll save Mikhaila and dear sweet Igwe first.

Before they contract a nasty case of Shotgun to the face.

Annoyingly enough, just letting them die isn't actually enough. You need to personally kill every human (though stuff like sabotaging Igwe's crate still counts); if any of the mind-controlled buggers blow themselves up, it won't count and the achievement will be unobtainable.

And then you gotta listen to the drones chew you out for being an utter psychopath during the ending. Not to mention how that'll make everything only more difficult in the long run.

I wonder though, can that particular ending be combined with the "Awkward Ride Home achievement?" It all depends on whether Dahl is part of that list of victims or not, and I'm not sure.

Dahl's one of the people you have to kill, yes. So the kill-everyone achievement and Awkward Ride Home are technically incompatible, but for convenience's sake you probably just want to leave Dahl and Igwe for last before engaging in save-reload shenanigans.

I think killing everyone except for Dahl still gets you the bad ending, though. You can just imagine: "Well, looks like the only person he empathised with was... the brutal, murderous mercenary? Great."

edited 14th Oct '17 9:56:11 AM by Lavaeolus

Killing more than two of the main cast automatically puts you on the bad ending: that includes Elazar, Igwe, Alex, and Mikaela. Killing anybody else still counts against you, and may even be mentioned in the ending, but factors nowhere near as heavily as those four.

An odd example was that volunteer trapped in the experiment chamber at Psychotronics. I let him free, but something killed him off-screen later, and for some reason it was brought up negatively (albeit both briefly, and in a vague, "I don't know how he died, but I know he did..." sort of way) during the ending.

edited 14th Oct '17 11:01:47 AM by SgtRicko

Ingram gets brought up because he's such a painfully obvious moral choice, and specifically part of the plot, since you have to resolve the experiment he's in to progress through Psychotronics.

Mimics most likely kill him anyway unless you go out of your way to keep him safe.

I'll most likely save-scum to get the Dahl achievement and the 'kill absolutely everyone' trophy.

At least it'll be easier than the 'kill no one' trophy.

I didn't really have any difficulties with the Do No Harm achievement, which in the end I got in the natural course of playing. Humans go down in a single hit from the stun gun, there's like two bits where they can be found hostile in any real number, and even if their heads do explode it doesn't count against you. Hell, even in the one case where it feels like you should kill, the "cook" will just die of a cough after you follow him.

Meanwhile on the kill-everyone path, you have to hunt down every living person on the ship, it's easy to accidentally lock yourself out of it by just missing one somewhere, and if any of their heads explode or one of the mind-controlled guys walks into a hazard (which you might not even notice), you're done for. Right hassle, in my opinion.

EDIT: I just watched the Extra Credits video. Pretty interesting watch, given me a bit more food for thought. I remembered the psych-test at the start, and while at the end the ideas of how the game acted to test you (and your empathy) were pretty upfront, I hadn't given that part much more thought.

edited 14th Oct '17 2:12:38 PM by Lavaeolus

Well the Impasta does kill himself anyway, but i found it more satisfying to do it myself. Most recently i used Remote Manipulation to trigger his recycler charge from a safe distance. He's so over the top evil it just feels necessary. Even the typhon are repulsed by him.

it was probably only him that held me back from the Do No Harm achievement-I killed Alex sometimes, but i think those two were the only ones.

now that i think about it, killing Sho will probably be tricky.

edited 14th Oct '17 2:20:30 PM by ArthurEld

I don't even think it's possible to kill her, she's outside of the station's protective glass when you meet her and she's only scripted to appear then and never elsewhere.

Yeah, Sho's not killabubble.

Fear the cinnamon sugar swirl. By the Gods, fear it, Laurence.

So I'm playing Prey, mainly because the Extra Credits video made it sound interesting. I'm not going out of my way to kill anyone^note except for that psychotronics guy, I read his bio, let him out for the code, and then beat him to death with a wrench; I also intend to murder my brother when I can finally find him, but I reached the cargo bay and the "bring us a bunch of turrets" quest.^note I don't really care about protecting them, either, but handing them a bunch of turrets and then leaving them there to attract more aliens away from me seems like the smart thing to do.

Is there a way to open the door between the fabricator and the survivors, or do I have to build myself a staircase of boxes/gloo to get them from one room into the other?

That’s the epitome of privilege right there, not considering armed nazis a threat to your life. - Silasw

I could've sworn all that was between the survivors and the fabricator and recycler was just a locked door. Or is this fabricator in a different area of the cargo bay?

It's a keycard-locked door, so I can't hack it open, nor have I found the right keycard, nor will any of the survivors inside give me one or open it themselves. I built myself some stairs to get the turrets up to the catwalk and over.

That’s the epitome of privilege right there, not considering armed nazis a threat to your life. - Silasw

I'm preparing myself for an Typhon powers-only^note First run I solely used human unlocks, kill everyone run and so I'm doing a bit of digging around for tips. So, here's a fun fact, you know Military Operators? Turns out you can stop dispensers from spawning them by 1) just stacking objects in front of the spawners, or 2) apparently if you use the stun gun on the dispenser it shuts them down. Relatedly, use the disruptor on a powered down terminal and it can — occasionally — turn them back on.

Admittedly when the Military Operators turned up I went into full "okay, let's just run through and finish this" mode, so I don't know how much knowing that would've actually help me.

In the meantime, since this thread is back up: there's been some hints, word on the street, that we might get Prey DLC or something of the like at Beth's E3 thing. Here's some Redditors collecting all the evidence they can find. Don't want to get anyone's hopes up, but if it happens I'll be really happy. Prey was ace, loved it.

...Oh crap. I think that might be a bug. If I recall correctly, the keycard for that particular door was supposed to be given to you by one of the security staff upon meeting up with them. You may have to reload your saves back to a point just before meeting up with them. I STRONGLY advise you just go ahead and cheat and take a look at the Prey wiki to determine whom exactly is supposed to give you the card, because you wouldn't want to trigger that glitch again.

For all the shit Prey gets from a lot of people, it does have a small but avid fanbase. So getting a DLC chapter would be really damn neat.

Fear the cinnamon sugar swirl. By the Gods, fear it, Laurence.

So, the Prey twitter did this tweet yesterday. Shows a small GIF with the message: 'a Great meMory: thRee thINGs caNNOt be lOnG hidden: the sun, the MOOn, AnD the tRuth.'

Since I have decided to join in and watch all the theory-spreading, here's some interesting details about it that I cannot rightly claim as my own discoveries: Those capitals spell out 'GMRINGNNOOGMOOADR', which is an anagram for 'Good Morning, Morgan'. The line in the game itself actually continues on, saying that 'it's March 15th'. A hint? Will there be an announcement tomorrow? Fingers crossed, people, fingers crossed.

The GIF is actually footage from this old backstory YouTube video, about 58 seconds in.

edited 14th Mar '18 11:51:25 AM by Lavaeolus

... Why the hell would I do that when there's enough cargo boxes around to build two staircases from the bottom deck up to the catwalks? Seriously, I built a crate staircase in Thief The Dark Project, this was child's play. That Morgan's going to get stabbed in the back a lot?

... so, engineering lady, I left you lying on the floor unable to apparently move your legs. Without stepping out of this thankfully-invulnerable elevator, I can see two telepaths, a weaver, and a fucking Nightmare. Is there a secret set of Jeffries Tubes you used to get from way the hell down there and into my office? If so, could you fucking tell me about it? I'm tired of sneaking up behind phantoms with my fully-modded shotgun.

Oh, speaking of bugs, I'm pretty sure that my weapons like the Q-ray and gloo gun are supposed to have animations, right? And the EMP grenades and typhon lures aren't supposed to be big red balls with "Replace Me" written on them?

That’s the epitome of privilege right there, not considering armed nazis a threat to your life. - Silasw

....Ummm did you get your hands on a bootleg copy or something? Because holy crap, that's the first time I've EVER heard of a grenade being improperly textured! (and yes, bot the GLOO gun and Q-Beam are supposed to have animations whenever firing)

You think two telepaths, a weaver and a Nightmare are enough to stop Mikhaila? She's an unstoppable force. Do you have a shotgun? Well, Mikhaila, my friend, can dual-wield tw— no, three, at once. The Typhon parted like a wave at her mere approach.

There's another character, Igwe, who can also seem to get to your office seemingly without trouble. It's weird.

Also yes, your game sounds bugged. I've never heard of that problem specifically, but if you're on Steam, I'd recommend checking it installed properly and maybe Verifying the Integrity of the Game Files.

EDIT: No announcement, but the Prey twitter tweeted this spooky picture. Is there a hidden message somewhere within? All I know is, later they posted this alternate version of it.

There's a date there on the second one, you know. '06.10.18'.^note That'd be MM.DD.YY, for the rest of you poor DD/MM/YY users out there.

EDIT 2: That's the date of the Beth E3 conference, isn't it?

edited 15th Mar '18 12:03:58 PM by Lavaeolus

Bought it off Steam and have the purchase e-mail to prove it. *sigh* I'll have to pester their help desk when I get to port and can get my laptop online. Until then, continue recycling grenades and lures into spare parts. At least my recycling grenades work, and for the record, that is possibly the most ingenious weapon I've ever seen. Yeah. I didn't discover the error until after we'd left port, and no connecting personal computers to the government network.

I am actually surprised that, upon ignoring Alex for a bit and circling the outside back to the hardware bay, the only typhon around was a poltergeist, which are thankfully easy to beat into submission without using up any precious ammo. Also discovered the easiest method of avoiding the nightmare - immediately jump to a new map, and suddenly you are invisible to him.

That’s the epitome of privilege right there, not considering armed nazis a threat to your life. - Silasw

That only works if you avoid the area the Nigthmare was in for an extended amount of time... at which point, he may possibly relocate to your current location. This is because the Nightmare works on an invisible timer, which is reset every time it's killed or evaded; only, merely losing it's trail results in the next appearance being much sooner. Still... if you've been leveling up both your powers and gear accordingly I don't think the Nightmare is going to be much more of a threat at this point - probably more of a annoyance and bullet sponge than anything else.

edited 15th Mar '18 4:35:19 PM by SgtRicko

With a fully upgraded shotgun and slow-motion, Nightmare is a joke of a joke.

Fear the cinnamon sugar swirl. By the Gods, fear it, Laurence.