PREY 2017 - Immersive sim game design lessons
Game design lessons from one of the best immersive sims ever. And how to make it better.
Core ideas
Prey is guided by unwavering ambition and love of game design
Prey strives to give the player freedom from beginning to end
Prey is a case-study of lateral thinking in game design
Prey knows the importance of making each item useful from beginning to end
Prey respects the player's time and avoids bland looter-shooter design
Prey is more immersive thanks to tactile and visual feedback
Prey's play-space is a sandbox for player abilities
Prey has novel enemy design
Prey's level-up mechanic is intuitive
Prey allows the player to explore previously visited areas with new abilities
Prey is a case-study for clean, intuitive functional UI
Prey understands the importance of believable architecture and world design.
Prey can be improved by:
Removing the hacking mini-game; or redesigning it to something tactical and removing frustration. See the mini-games in Deus Ex: Mankind Divided.
Improving movement and physicality. Take inspiration from modern action games.
Introducing enemies with better elemental resistances.
Rebalancing the inventory for better tactical play.
Listen to the post.1. Prey is guided by ambition and love of game design
You wake up on the same day, everyday. Most of what you know is a lie. The horizon-spanning view outside your room is an illusion meant to keep you sedated.
You take part in a strange experiment, then break free of the illusion. You find novel weapons and gadgets, and use them against eldritch creatures which can morph into everyday-use items.
You are living a lie. Reality unfolds into another layer, even stranger. When you think the story has ended, hoping you've made all the right choices, the illusion unfolds again, more terrifying.
The above does not describe a normal day in our lives, but the flow of a masterpiece of game design.
I love RPGs and immersive sims for the promise of freedom, choice, and reactivity.
As all cult classics, Prey is ambitious and smart. In part by virtue of its genre - immersive sims, or hybrids, make freedom a tenet of their design, striving for multiple ways to accomplish most tasks.
Ambition and love may be abstract and difficult to quantify; Prey is a labor of love that makes them obvious with superb world-design, novel enemies and items, and open-ended gameplay.
2. Give the player freedom from beginning to end
Look for a game which understands choice is paramount for RPGs and hybrids, and you'll find Prey. Brave the tutorial and the space station will open into a derelict sandbox, calling to be explored.
Ever so inviting, more than one location may be accessed at most times, objectives may often be accomplished in non-linear order. Items, including powerful weapons and gadgets, can be found early or hours later, depending on how much Morgan explores.
You'll find no complex social interaction system in Prey, yet the game achieves a surprising amount of freedom in dealing with people. Choice in Prey is a matter of mechanical action: we explore the world and use items; we deal with or avoid enemies, and help, avoid or hinder other humans as we see fit.
Justified or not, games will make their characters invincible to ensure the story will always progress. Prey rejects this to its extreme, and allows for the elimination of every character you meet, including January, Morgan's "companion".
So many options may be overwhelming and contribute to choice paralysis. But Prey is memorable because it creates complex systems that respect and reward the player's mental capacities, and the need for exploration and choice.
3. Use lateral design
Look for helpful principles to create more complex worlds, and you'll find design thinking and lateral design. These awesome principles use systems that are useful in more than one way, taking inspiration from areas of design outside of an established genre or medium.
In Prey, some items double as offensive weapons and means for traversing the environment or pacifying mind-controlled humans.
The first memorable weapon-slash-gadget is the Gloo Cannon, a genius item useful for dealing with enemies and traversing the environment. More than a weapon, the Gloo becomes a natural extension of Morgan's physical abilities.
It can paralyze enemies, blocking movement and abilities.
It may be used to create new pathways, sometimes to inaccessible areas.
The Gloo feels intuitive to use. A few minutes at most are needed to be impressed by the gadget and wonder why something similar is not present in more games.
The recycler charge feels just as natural, intuitive, and suspiciously missing from other games. Through lateral design, it may be used as a weapon, or an essential means to extend Morgan's abilities by opening up closed-off areas.
Even chests, this ever-present commodity of video games, can be searched, then picked up and hurled at enemies, with damage depending on Morgan's physical abilities.
Enemies may be defeated in multiple ways: with mind-control abilities, by distracting or incapacitating them, by using different kinds of grenades, stunting or recycling Typhon as materials for neuromod fabrication.
You may sneak around them, with success depending on neuromods. Or you may prove the bigger Typhon - I mean man or woman - with traditional weapons, environment items such as explosive canisters, or offensive abilities, Prey's version of magic.
4. Avoid looter-shooter design
Modern games may think it a virtue to fill the world and inventory with variants of the same weapon. Prey offers items with specific uses, and allows Morgan to focus them further through upgrades.
As other tactical systems, beginning with chess, we are encouraged to understand each item and its optimal use, plus taking care of weapons and not wasting upgrades. A good example of brevity in design, somewhat more lax in Prey, which offers optimal results if Morgan understands the best use for each item.
Weapon kits, limited in number, can be fabricated and found throughout the station. Instead of finding the same variant of an item with bland incremental upgrades, Prey encourages improving each distinct weapon to be useful until the very end.
5. Tactile and visual feedback
Another genius method for Prey to maintain immersion is the visual and "physical" in-game feedback you get when recycling and fabricating items.
The recycler and the fabricator are the primary carriers of this design - physical diegetic items Morgan uses, not just UI menus.
Dismantling and fabricating items could be done through the user interface. Prey's visual diegetic feedback gives the act weight, makes it satisfying by witnessing every step of the creation process.
The Gloo cannon and recycler recharge are part of this focus on tactile feedback.
These may be defining moments for Prey's obsession with freedom:
Seeing an area you cannot reach and realizing you can climb up or down by using the "natural" ability of the Gloo.
Recycling enemies and items into material.
Placing said material into the fabricator and seeing the transformation process in real-time.
You are acting in the game world in a physical manner. The act has weight. All this could have been done through in-game menus, but the devs brought the act to life through clever visual and tactile feedback.
An opportunity has been lost by not applying the same philosophy to upgrading weapons.
Upgrades are done through menu actions, an issue compounded by the lack of visible updates on weapons. Prey should have taken inspiration from Bioshock and change weapon appearance after applying upgrades.
6. Make the game-space a sandbox for player abilities
Prey encourages us to explore.
The first few regions are relatively open, and can be traversed or avoided in multiple ways.
The Gloo cannon doubles as a weapon and mobility enhancer. The game does telegraph this and reinforces the mechanic several times, by showing how it has been used to gain access to a higher ground.
Enemies and regions may be easier or difficult to tackle depending on progression. It is tempting to always venture forth within a new region, but navigating new places may be easier if Morgan returns with new abilities.
The late-game can be difficult or refreshingly easy depending on how many neuromods and gadgets Morgan has acquired.
Making use of lateral design, the environment may often be traversed in multiple ways: through a direct path, sometimes guarded by Typhon; through hidden pathways, more or less obvious, or by making your own way thanks to neuromods, recycler grenades, and the Gloo cannon.
Morgan's physicality increases once she fabricates the glider propulsion system, allowing for partial flight across the space station. A location may be available now or later, if Morgan feels inspired to float around.
7. Novel enemy design
The smaller enemies in Prey - mimics - can morph into various objects. They might morph in plain sight, during combat, or may wait for Morgan to explore an area without observing it carefully first.
The creatures look alien and unsettling, as nightmares brought to life, literarily and figuratively.
Their abilities and design make them perfect candidates for hiding in darkness to execute jump scares.
A jump scare is a cliche of horror stories, but Prey is a natural... space for them, thanks to enemy appearance and behavior.
The act makes entering dark areas dangerous and frightful, keeping tension high across the story. As with its novel gadgets, I wish more games would use this kind of "malleable" enemy design.
The "final boss" is a natural extension of the Typhon and mimic design:
The way the creature functions and is introduced makes it more of an eldritch, existentially unsettling horror.
This apex predator never feels like something completely understandable. Prey did right to not reveal every single secret about its origin.
More than its comrades, the creature is terrifying at an instinctual level, supported by its introduction: suddenly, while thinking the story is just about done, a sort of cosmic tear opens near the space station.
The monstrosity will casually surround everything in its grasp. It will block the view to the rest of the universe to instill both awe and dread.
What could be done, even transformed with Typhon abilities, against this ancient mystery that is potentially unkillable and may traverse the cosmos as if strolling through its own backyard. When witnessing its appearance, we may feel trapped both physically and existentially.
Lack of hope is an obvious theme when the story concludes. This apex predator is the visual and gameplay expression of the theme, signaling to Morgan that fighting the Typhon may be impossible in the long-term. Or perhaps without humans becoming more like the Typhon.
8. An intuitive upgrade system
You may become an apex predator, but not directly by attacking. Prey avoids the standard level-up system of experience points, and transforms it into a diegetic in-world mechanic.
The neuromod works as narrative and game-design mechanic - it is not acquired automatically, but found and fabricated during gameplay. Technically, there is no need to attack anything to gain "experience" in Prey, since neuromods are diegetic items in that world.
In other, less creative games, you improve your hacking, speech, sneaking by attacking enemies and applying experience points. Prey only allows upgrades if Morgan finds or fabricates the necessary neuromods.
You may not find innovation in Prey's level-up design, but the system makes sense, is intelligible and naturalist. It encourages exploration and optimal resource use, as materials needed for neuromods may also be used for other items.
Of course, neuromods may be avoided completely, as Morgan can reject the benefits of Typhon magic, ending the story without any enhancements.
9. Freedom to visit past levels
In Prey, you'll explore a hub-based and not completely open world, as with most immersive sims. To compensate, the space station will offer most of itself for exploration, creating objectives across hubs, difficult or easy to attain thanks to new abilities.
Not all objectives have to be completed immediately. The path to a new region becomes easier or more difficult depending on narrative and player progression. Some weapons and gadgets may be acquired sooner or later, in turn influencing pacing.
The freedom to visit past areas is not a mandatory requirement for RPGs and hybrids. Plenty of memorable games have used a pseudo-linear progression design, including Deus Ex and Dishonored.
Prey uses the principle to sustain its world-design and support lateral gameplay.
It makes sense, in most situations, that previous areas could be visited again, especially by using new abilities: greater strength, hacking, repair, or simply by finding an access code or keycard.
10. The importance of architecture and world-design
Look for a world which understands the importance of open-ended level design and naturalist architecture, and you'll find Prey. The world design thrives mechanically and visually, with an environment that is novel, alluring, well-crafted, almost transcending its purpose as a play-space.
The space station feels connected, organic, made with purpose - designed not just by game developers, but by humans creating a habitable living space. In short, the station makes sense as human-centric architecture.
Immersive sims rely on a strong representation of their world, not on abstract level-design. Similar to Dishonored 2 and Mankind Divided, Prey's play-space is a triumph of world and visual design. Navigating its levels is interesting as gameplay, intriguing as visiting a natural world, almost educational.
Some human characters in Prey are more developed than others. Though you may remember them when the story is done, you also remember the space-station itself. Like wanting to know or spend more time with the people on it, I wanted more time to explore the environment.
The design is inspiring, both for the care put into it, and as space to be enjoyed and studied without gameplay objectives. A character of its own.
11. How to improve Prey
Prey's fascinating design is almost faultless. With simple adjustments it would be perfect.
1. First, the obvious: the hacking minigame is its weakest aspect - a bland frustrating imitation of any hacking activity.
The minigame is only meant to introduce an obstacle to bypass, without consideration for making a tactical system the player will enjoy solving. It requires agility when Morgan already has the hacking upgrade.
The minigame should be an opportunity to let players use their mental abilities first. To improve it, skip the bouncing mechanic, let the player reach the target without needing physical agility.
For a great minigame example, try Deus Ex Mankind Divided, another epitome of hybrid design. MD's main hacking mini-game takes inspiration from chess and turn-based games to eschew the need for agility. It relies on planning, environmental awareness, and mental acuity.
2. Movement and physicality. Prey's movement is good, but even upgraded, it feels somewhat stiff. It remains acceptable in terms of realism, but less great for gameplay and mobility.
Improve mobility by slightly increasing the standard move speed, especially with neuromod upgrades. Then, introduce a simple dash mechanic.
Prey has a dash skill attainable through neuromods, but without being allowed to use it freely, movement feels stiff, with the only options to compensate being sprinting and jumping.
A dash ability introduced by the propulsion system would increase agility and enhance traversal and combat encounters.
For anyone doubting the importance of a dash or dodge mechanic, consider how natural it feels and how much it improves movement in Doom Eternal, Sekiro, Dead Cells and others.
With faster movement, less camera sway and a dash ability, Prey would feel more precise and less time consuming when exploring and fighting. And helping people (and Typhon?) who avoid the game for being too difficult.
3. With better movement, we can have faster, deadlier enemies, with more resistances.
Prey could take inspiration from modern games that have done combat better, and introduce enemies that cannot be defeated by filling them with lead.
It often feels absurd on how easy a Typhon can be dispensed with the shotgun or security gun. Enemy movement and perks are already interesting in Prey, but enemies are too vulnerable to standard weapons.
Fix this by adjusting enemy resistances: make them partially or completely immune to certain weapons and elements - immunity to lead, fire, electricity etc.
Prey can be overwhelming in the first half, and easy toward the end. Enemy resistances would contribute to making encounters more tactical. Otherwise, another way to rebalance the difficulty is by making neuromods less prevalent.
Prey's inventory contributes to making encounters easy. Ideally, I would use the grid system inventory of Prey, Deus Ex and others in every RPG and hybrid.
The visual feedback is immediate and intuitive, easy to balance, and makes sense visually, to sustain the game's naturalism (not realism).
For a more tactical game, make the inventory less forgiving.
By the end of the story, Morgan will have space to carry many weapons, a plethora of gadgets and items.
After upgrading Morgan's strength and suit, it makes sense she would be able to move around while holding several weapons. This can also reduce difficulty too much.
To make it more tactical, increase the space needed by weapons. By the end, Morgan will only carry one of each, plus several gadgets and items.
Share your knowledge in the comments.