Sup, Zig Forums, dunno how many people will give a shit about this considering how poorly the original performed, but I know Arkane has it's fans on here.
This isn't an industry I normally report on (I specialize in film shit) but I have someone I trust that feeds me vidya scoops from time to time. They were recently part of a digital press event held by Bethesda to talk about a soon to be revealed VR-exclusive sequel to Arkane's Prey reboot.
For a while this project's working title was "Prey 2", but it seems that after the marketing disaster that was calling the 2017 game Prey despite it having fuck all to do with Human Head's cancelled sequel, they're just going with "Prey VR". It's very odd to hear that a series with such a niche audience is getting a title exclusive to an already niche platform, but it will be interesting to see a AAA immersive sim done in full VR. The game started development in 2018 and is being headed by Arkane's studio in Austin. Harvey Smith, who was present at the event, joins Ricardo Bare as one the creative leads on the game, since Raphael Colantonio departed from the company after Prey shipped. Ricardo is more involved however, as Harvey has also been collaborating with another team on a new Arx game. They're targeting a timed exclusive 2021 PSVR release, with it coming to Steam a few months after.
> The bulk of the game is set on Earth, post-typhon invasion. You play as the Morgan Yu injected typhoid hybrid seen at the end of the first, set on retaking the planet. Your brother Alex is stationed on an impromptu space installation salvaged out of the scraps of Talos I. He's your main contact throughout the game that sets you out on your tasks. This station serves as a hub area, not much unlike the Fortress of Doom from Doom Eternal. In fact, the basic premise of both games are quite similar. There's a modified "mimic portal" onboard the station that you will use to infiltrate all the different typhon infested locales on Earth.
> The intro is apparently really cool. I won't spoil much, but this game has twists and turns that make the original seem unremarkable by comparison. The first location you visit is an underground facility in San Francisco that shelters most of the survivors, including a few familiar faces from Talos. Since the mimic portal has to be first activated earthside, you get there by means of an escape shuttle. This triggers a pretty cutscene sequence showing you the whole trip from space. Accompanying it is a remix of "Everything Is Going to Be Ok" that grows more distorted as you enter the planets atmosphere. The city has been totally twisted by the Typhon's presence, everything is coated in golden filament and buildings are being consumed by enormous Typhon masses.
Zachary Moore
> This time around, the gameplay is apparently more of a homage to the Deus Ex series than System Shock. They even jokingly referred to it as "Prey-us Ex". Rather than a free to roam space station, the game is split into several levels (not that much unlike the studio's own Dishonored, or of course, Deus Ex) all of which feature a different play environment, each with its own main quest and set of side quests. In true immersive sim fashion, the combination of possible approaches to these missions are very plentiful. They offer lots of verticality and obstacles that require creative player thinking. Arkane stress that their "play your way" philosophy is very important to them. In a demo, they reintroduce the neuromod upgrade system, showcasing a new iteration of the Mimic Matter ability from 2017. You can now shape-shift into enemy typhon organisms, or even humans, which presents a sort of social stealth mechanic to the game.
> On the VR side of things, the game resembles a sort of middle ground between Half-Life Alyx and Boneworks. Movement can be set to teleport only, smooth locomotion or a hybrid. Smooth is recommended, as the game was mostly built and paced with it in mind. There's two handed weapons/gadgets and a backpack inventory system resembling the one seen in TWD Saints & Sinners. Arkane boast about the fairly advanced physics system they've achieved in UE4, which is where my Boneworks comparison comes from. Since only around half of the Austin team are working on this, and the fact that they're only dipping their toes in VR to gauge interest in more potential VR immsims, the game is only around half as long as the first.
Jayden Young
> There's 3 main factions that you can choose to side with, all with their own goals for the Typhon. Alex/TranStar want to use Morgan to empathize with the Typhon, and integrate them into society. The human rebellion want Morgan to destroy every trace of the Typhon, and retake the planet for themselves. KASMA want Morgan to preserve and weaponize the Typhon. Chris Avellone is a "writing consultant" on some of the story quests, which I'm not sure is a great thing for marketing considering the recent allegations.
The marketing cycle will begin very soon, with a reveal around gamescom as the final beat for the studio's 20th anniversary celebration. Initially it was going to happen in June, but BLM/Covid shifted a lot of Zenimax's plans.
Julian Torres
considering Bethesda were just announced to be present at Gamescom, I'd wager this is what they'll be showing tomorrow anything more you can say about the Arx game? very interested in that
Luis Perry
also OP, how long is this game? is it as long as Prey or is this more of a short spin-off?
Dylan Perry
>VR-exclusive Fuck this shit, WHY not both?
Christian Flores
I'd unironically buy this. I always wanted a system shock-like game in VR
Samuel Butler
It’s probably bullshit but I hope so. Deathloop looks lame and I’m probably not buying it
Jordan Martinez
VR fag here, this sounds cool. Should I play Prey in order to prepare myself for this?
Thomas Phillips
Bullshit, it's not a sequel, it's simply the first game in vr
Brandon Bennett
>PSVR timed exclusive Can't they at least save them for when the new PSVR is out and hopefully has better controllers
for a vr game to reach its full potential it needs to be built from the ground up as a VR game. You can port a flat game to VR and it works decently, but a full VR game can't be ported to flat.
>make your niche franchise even more niche Why?! Who is making these bonehead decisions?
Carter Russell
wait what? >it's true MOTHERFUCKER I WAS ACTUALLY INTERESTED. FUCK
Lincoln Brown
i would nut if this was true, but it makes literally no sense
>make sequel to commercial failure and make the audience even more limited
Ethan Sanchez
We'll see how good it is I suppose. Bethesda's VR showings have been mediocre, and it's a great shame since they at least show enthusiasm for the medium.
Technically Fallout 4 VR was their best VR title, it has terrible performance issues, some of which were resolved through patches, and unsurprisingly more through mods and fan patches. But, it was a largely successful VR port that met the minimum criteria for a VR game.
Skyrim VR threw the good away, and whilst also performing terribly, was a glorified headcam mod, with a whole host of VR issues. Again fixed by modders, but not great at all.
And Doom VR was just atrocious and deserves no further contemplation.
Then there was Wolfenstein Cyberpilot which was universally panned.
Each time their VR games get worse.
Owen Hill
>it's true why do you think it is true?
Oliver Ramirez
too good to be true
I think they fully intend to launch TES VI as a flat/VR hybrid. Making Prey VR for nothing but market research/gameplay experiment would be invaluable to this end goal. Even if it's a total loss, it could be written off as development cost for getting TES VI right.
Adam Morales
>They're targeting a timed exclusive 2021 PSVR release
To think about this shit started because Bethesda was pissed that Microsoft bought InXile and Obsidian and Microsoft argued that Bethesda gave the marketing rights and gamepass availability of a trash game (FO76).
John Rogers
NEW ARX GAME? Legit hyped.
Joseph Howard
OP come back and tell us about the Arx game and when to expect it please
Oliver Scott
This. VR games are absolutely fucking incredible, there's no experience quite like it. But a games that aren't made for VR aren't that good in VR, and games that are made for VR aren't that good out of VR.
Josiah Bennett
I don't recognize the image behind the logo. Might be real.
Ian Brown
what games would you recommend for VR? I'm getting one sometime this year
Jackson Bennett
Good to hear, i really loved the original prey. It was one of my favourite games this generation. Sad to hear this will be pretty short, though.
Jaxon Harris
Half life alyx, Beatsaber, Boneworks and personally recommend serious sam vr if youre into serious sam
Ethan Campbell
super hot vr is good
Blake Perry
>everything is a mimic in VR Could be spooky
Nathan Green
OP is full of shit, the trademark for Prey VR was leaked way back in June, is the VR version of Prey, nothing more. And they would never call a sequel "Prey VR"
Ayden Parker
well, if it is a sequel like OP suggests, calling it Prey 2 and having it be VR only would likely really piss off Prey fans, but making it a smaller VR only title just called 'Prey VR' isn't as bad
Ethan Brooks
>Prey VR I'm pretty much completely uninterested if it's a port, which is what all the info actually points to. Not only was the game a mess, but it'd be fucking awful in VR.
A standalone sequel? Maybe I'd play it if the reviews are good.
Camden Wilson
OP I don't believe you but god damn it I want it to be real. Although frankly what I really wanted was a port of Prey.
Josiah Diaz
Arkane can barely make immersive sims profitable on three platforms and you think they built an entire game with new assets for VR?
Leo Watson
>>VR games are absolutely fucking incredible No, they aren't. They play like shitty tech demos with no content.
Alyx is the only thing in VR you could actually call a game. And even then, it's just an alright 6 hour HL sequel, nothing groundbreaking, and nothing that "needed" to be VR.
Julian Thomas
We already have this, it's available on PC for years and it's PVP shit that you can only play with friends.
Grayson Cruz
>Not only was the game a mess shit taste faggot
Nathan Diaz
>commercial failure it wasn't skyrim, but prey was a solid game with decent sales
Tyler Johnson
Unfortunately I haven't been able to play many VR games myself since I've been busy ever since I got my headset, but I've played a few games.
First and foremost - Half Life Alyx is just the peak of VR at the moment. To say that "Valve have done it again" is an understatement. If Half-Life introduced the idea of narrative and intelligent AI to FPS games, and Half-Life 2 revolutionized deep physics based gameplay and cheap but effective graphics... Half Life Alyx does the same except with Virtual Reality.
Boneworks left a sour taste in my mouth. The movement and constant body physics is fun and quirky in its own way, but it can be detrimental too. You have to jump over any corpses instead of walking over them, and you'll find you get caught on stuff for no reason at all. Obviously this full body physics is what allows you to do some creative stuff with the game, it's a mixed bag. The absolute worst part of Boneworks however is that it has absolutely dreadful level design and pacing. You go through short combat segments followed by long, obscure wonky physics puzzles and to me that gets very boring and outright tiring. The most improtant thing to remember when playing VR is that you will get tired after X amount of time, and if your time is spent just staring at obscure puzzles while you struggle to wrestle physics objects in to the correct place... you can see where I'm going with that. Regardless I think it's an experience worth trying if only because it's an experience and a stepping stone for people to learn from for developing VR games in the future.
I've been playing Blade and Sorcery a lot lately and that's pretty fun too. Although as of right now the game runs like shit for everyone, even people with beefy computers. It's pretty directionless, but it's still fun and a really good workout too. Just be sure not to punch the wall or something.
Next game I'm looking at is that Walking Dead one.
Jaxson Harris
I don't believe it, but cool if it's true. I recently had a dream that revolved around the game (setting/mechanics/enemy), and it had me waking up thinking how cool it'd be in VR. If they manage to get the same feel of the last game into VR, that'd be awesome. The game's visuals weren't the best in terms of detail, but they were low-poly enough that you could probably put them in a VR game with little to no performance loss.
Julian Fisher
you should try Paper Beast, from the guy that did Another World, Heart of Darkness and From Dust, heard good things about it
Charles Bennett
>first game flopped >so let’s make the sequel VR exclusive
?
Landon Reed
Walking Dead's great. It's the closest thing we've got to a VR immersive sim, unless OP turns out to be true.
Alexander Myers
Call me when you've played any actual immersive sims, zoomer. Prey was a mess, from all perspectives. The story was a mess, the branch points were a mess, the gameplay was a mess, the discovery was a mess because you were never resource limited even on the hardest difficulty, the enemies were boring as shit and poorly formed, mimics wound up being less scary than headcrabs and the enemy variety was a joke, the weapons and the upgrade systems were retarded, with the shotgun being completely broken, I mean the list just goes on and on.
I struggle to name even a single thing the game did right. Honestly, I think I preferred Bioshock 1 to Prey. That's how shit it was.
