Prey (both titles entitled Prey)

 Prey- (Both titles (note including VR version of latest Prey)

Both of these games are really really weird. The first, which came out in 1996, starts in a comfortable setting seemingly almost too familiar and safe to the main character. It's a bar, somewhere in the western United States. In the bar, you are joined by a warm and wise almost pushing stereotypical Native American man. The man is up there in age and related to you, a grandfather if memory serves or the father of your ideal Native American girlfriend who works as a bartender in this location. This opening setting could be described almost as, simply hanging out, and at this juncture the mind sprints to guess how this is going to turn into some sort of horror, or science fiction, or I dunno...a videogame maybe. Well, be careful what you only begin to formulate as hope or wish for because before you even really get bored of the bar, a UFO erupts onto the scene immediately zapping up your beloved girlfriend and Grampa Chief Wisdom and the game has totally begun. Somehow you find yourself on the alien ship rather swiftly, the body horror visual gore fest involving any and all individuals already cast as important and close to your character are tortured in overly graphic almost crudely unneeded scenes of alien devices pulverizing your creaming loved ones as you move helplessly along some conveyor belt, hopefully not headed to an alien meat packer of some sort. Grampa becomes a post breathing Jedi hologram of himself, you have to fight the aliens with Art Bell clips playing in the background. Much like Half Life's decision, to have a setting which sits on the foundation of 90's era, X-Files inspired alien mythology and military sourced conspiracy theories popularized by people at the time like William Cooper, George Nooray, Jordan Maxwell, and the like...the game is a charming but oddly abruptly disturbing mix of alien theories and BDSM torture porn, the reasons for which are unsettlingly unclear to the player, altogether this shooter kind of has a keen understanding of modern psychological body horror games where the player is without a weapon, while still taking tips from big bang slapstick shooters at the time such as Duke Nuke-Em, and the online versions of Quake, Unreal, and the like.

The game’s story is focused on Cherokee Domasi “Tommy” Tawodi as he, his girlfriend, and grandfather are abducted aboard an alien spaceship known as The Sphere as it consumes material, both inanimate and living, from Earth in order to sustain itself. Tommy’s Cherokee past allows him to let his spirit roam freely at times, and gives Tommy an edge in his attempt to stop the Sphere Prey wiki



"Prey is a Sci-Fi FPS made by Human Head Studios, using id's Doom 3 engine. The game features the traditional shooter banter, as well as some unique puzzles. To solve these puzzles, you need to walk on the ceiling, walls, and go through portals to complete. Also the game had an online multiplayer component and a soundtrack composed by Jeremy Soule, the man behind Oblivion and Guild Wars' soundtrack. Marketing for the "sequel", Prey 2, would imply that the title of the game referred to the fact that the aliens were hunting Tommy throughout the Sphere, but this is not the case, and in truth, it referred to the fact that the aliens intended to consume all of humanity.      Prey was officially announced in 1995, eleven years before the game came out. Tom Hall worked on the original design of the game but was replaced by Paul Schuytema after he left to form another company. Hall envisioned an alien abduction that the story would be based around; the new team kept that concept but changed the setting to a huge space ship inhabited by the Trocara and the Keepers. The protagonist was to be a stereotypical Native American named "Talon Brave".   At E3 1997 and E3 1998, the development team showed off some of the game's concepts including the use of portal technology and highly destructible environments. These features impressed those that saw it and it received much acclaim. At this point in the development, it seemed like 3D Realms was on its way to releasing a great game. The visuals were looking great for its time and people were confident in the studio due to the successful Duke Nukem 3D.   Unfortunately, it didn't last. Devastating technical issues started coming up, and Prey fell apart. When Schuytema's version of Prey was officially done for, 3D Realms brought on Corrinne Yu in November 1998 in an attempt to revive the game. Despite their efforts, this new version of Prey also failed, and the project went on hiatus in 1999.  In 2001, the portal technology that the studio needed was already being used in many other titles, so all 3D Realms had to do was license it instead of creating their own. Rumors began circulating the following year that 3D Realms was                  making Prey, but the game was kept a secret until 2005 when 2K Games announced the game. The game was finally released on July 11, 2006, using the id Tech 4 engine and a new          protagonist named Tommy."- from Giant Bomb article here       

History Of Original Prey here at Games Radar    
                  

The recent Prey for the last gen systems was also about aliens, and body horror realizations, shocking psychological horror with a small "Matrix" like essence but relevant to a space station exploration shooter, which is broken up by scientific endeavors and head scratching geometric puzzles spread throughout the games levels. The game is fairly thought out as is evident by the multiple methods one can think up and experiment with to get past a given barrier or lock, etc...
The plot borrows also from X-Files era vibes with a touch of contemporary technological phobias as much as it encourages the use of these technologies, for example their are neuro-enhancements, which function and are defined as tech somewhere on a spectrum spanning "Matrix" skill downloads and Cyberpunk neuroenhancements.