Some spoilery thoughts on Prey (2017)
Aug. 11th, 2021 11:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
feotakahariThere was an essay I read a couple years ago that I’ve since lost track of. It argued that Prey was a nihilistic mockery of “moral choice” in games, with an ending that deliberately undermined the idea that the choices you make in a game mean anything. At the time, I disagreed with the essay, but I wasn’t able to explain why.
I’m going to draw a strange analogy here. I once read a novel about a shallow womanizer who falls in love with Aphrodite. When they separate at the end, her parting gift is an artifact that will make any woman fall in love with him. She knows full well he’s grown to a point where he no longer wants such a thing, and her real gift is to make him understand his own character development. When he throws the artifact away, he knows he’s changed for the better.
Prey starts by offering you freedom of choice. You can track down survivors and save them, or you can finish them off yourself. You can be kind, callous, or coldly pragmatic, and to an extent, this leads into different story branches.
After your first playthrough, however, it becomes clear that the evil actions don’t allow you to reach a proper ending. It simply cuts off early and boots you out. So if you want to see the real ending, you have to start over and start saving people again.
Then at the very end of the true ending path, you pass the test, and your reward is to once again decide freely. Kill or spare? Peace or violence? This time, both choices are equally valid. No one’s judging anymore, aside from you.
I don’t think you’re really supposed to choose to kill in the end, but I think it matters that the game gives you the choice. It makes you play as someone who does the right thing, and then it asks, isn’t this what you want now? Isn’t this more satisfying than the playthrough where you killed everyone? The game is built to guide you to one answer, but it still has enough confidence in you to let you reach--or reject--that answer yourself.
I’m going to draw a strange analogy here. I once read a novel about a shallow womanizer who falls in love with Aphrodite. When they separate at the end, her parting gift is an artifact that will make any woman fall in love with him. She knows full well he’s grown to a point where he no longer wants such a thing, and her real gift is to make him understand his own character development. When he throws the artifact away, he knows he’s changed for the better.
Prey starts by offering you freedom of choice. You can track down survivors and save them, or you can finish them off yourself. You can be kind, callous, or coldly pragmatic, and to an extent, this leads into different story branches.
After your first playthrough, however, it becomes clear that the evil actions don’t allow you to reach a proper ending. It simply cuts off early and boots you out. So if you want to see the real ending, you have to start over and start saving people again.
Then at the very end of the true ending path, you pass the test, and your reward is to once again decide freely. Kill or spare? Peace or violence? This time, both choices are equally valid. No one’s judging anymore, aside from you.
I don’t think you’re really supposed to choose to kill in the end, but I think it matters that the game gives you the choice. It makes you play as someone who does the right thing, and then it asks, isn’t this what you want now? Isn’t this more satisfying than the playthrough where you killed everyone? The game is built to guide you to one answer, but it still has enough confidence in you to let you reach--or reject--that answer yourself.
