{"id":52511,"date":"2021-07-09T06:00:11","date_gmt":"2021-07-09T10:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/?p=52511"},"modified":"2022-02-16T06:20:37","modified_gmt":"2022-02-16T11:20:37","slug":"prey-2017-part-1-the-451-genre","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/?p=52511","title":{"rendered":"Prey 2017 Part 1: The 451 Genre"},"content":{"rendered":"

I love this game. I loved it back in 2017 when I made it my GOTY<\/a>. I loved it even more the following year when the Mooncrash DLC turned the game into a roguelike<\/a>. Every time I come back to the game I appreciate it more.<\/p>\n

No, this game has nothing to do with the 2006 videogame of the same name<\/a>. The “Prey” branding doesn’t make a ton of sense here. The behavior of the antagonists is less predatory and more “viral infection”. Yes, they’re space-monsters who kill people so it kind of<\/i> works, but we don’t usually talk about infectious agents \/ alien invasions in terms of predation.\u00a0 It’s not that the name is invalid<\/i>, it’s just not a great fit. The game was still untitled when the publisher came to the developers and suggested they use the name “Prey”<\/a>, since they owned the trademark for it. And we all know how much Zenimax LOVES their trademarks<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Chris Franklin has suggested<\/a> that the game could have been \/ should have been titled “PsycoShock”, which would have been thematically appropriateIt certainly would have fit better than “Prey”.<\/span> and would make it part of the informal System Shock<\/i> \/ BioShock lineage<\/i>. There’s no evidence to support this, but it’s a really interesting ideaNeuroShock would also work, IMO.<\/span>.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The Immersive Sim<\/h3>\n

Here someone wrote psychoshock on the dry-erase board. It's very meta to imagine the characters in the game were brainstorming possible titles FOR the game.<\/div>
Here someone wrote psychoshock on the dry-erase board. It's very meta to imagine the characters in the game were brainstorming possible titles FOR the game.<\/div><\/p>\n

I guess we’ve decided that we’re calling this genre “immersive sim”? This is kind of confusing. Like, isn’t the word “sim” sort of explicitly reserved for Maxis-styled high-level simulation games<\/a>? I guess it’s an improvement over “Thinking Man’s Shooter”, which is what we were calling these things 20 years ago. I always found that one a little pretentious. Also “451 Games” was popular for a while, but it lacks any sort of descriptive element that people like their genre names to have.<\/p>\n

This genre was also called “Looking Glass Games”, back when the now-defunct Looking Glass Studios<\/a> was the only one making them. I’m sad that Looking Glass went under, although maybe it was ultimately good for the hobby.\u00a0 The former LGS staff became a sort of creative diaspora, scattered across the game industry and putting the Looking Glass DNA into other games and genres. Ken Levine<\/a> went on to Irrational Games and made BioShock, Warren Spector<\/a> went to ION Storm and made Deus Ex, and Doug Church<\/a> also went to ION Storm and made Thief: Deadly Shadows<\/a>.<\/p>\n

What Is an Immersive Sim?<\/h3>\n