Arkane PREY - Arkane's immersive coffee cup transformation sim - now with Mooncrash roguelike mode DLC

[udm]

At this point, given Arkane's most recent lineup of games, Dishonored 3 will probably have the niggest characters in the series.

 

[Drop Duck]

Tbh, without Raph at the helm, I doubt Dishonored 3 is something worth looking forward to.

You already got Dishonored 3, it's called Death Loop and it's the best and most diverse game in the series.

 

[Drop Duck]

I would have liked this game better if the monsters weren't scribbly black lines. Laziest creature design in history

It's sublimated racism, since they can't make the player lynch poc people of color they hide it with squiggly black lines and hope people won't notice that you're playing a story in which you are an asian vigilante brutalizing the Black community in space.

 

[<3sRichardSimmons]

Tbh, without Raph at the helm, I doubt Dishonored 3 is something worth looking forward to.

D2 was superior to D1 in most ways and Raph was by his own admission barely involved with it beyond pre-production.

 

[Ventidius]

Tbh, without Raph at the helm, I doubt Dishonored 3 is something worth looking forward to.

D2 was superior to D1 in most ways and Raph was by his own admission barely involved with it beyond pre-production.

But at least back then the staff was willing to iterate on the design methodology of Raph and the previous games. Not sure that's any longer the case.

 

[kangaxx]

Tbh, without Raph at the helm, I doubt Dishonored 3 is something worth looking forward to.

D2 was superior to D1 in most ways and Raph was by his own admission barely involved with it beyond pre-production.

I dunno, I preferred D1 overall because I think they did a good job on the atmosphere. I think D2 had the best two levels in the series though.

 

[JDR13]

Have you guys seen Redfall? What makes you think they would go back to making incline like Dishonored or Prey?

Arkane was one of the good ones for awile, but I don't expect much from them going forward.

 

[indite]

Loved this game, shame Deathloop dropped the ball kinda, was looking forward to it but the way the loop ended broke immersion alot and ended up making the whole thing feel boring less interesting than previous titles.

 

[indite]

Tbh, without Raph at the helm, I doubt Dishonored 3 is something worth looking forward to.

D2 was superior to D1 in most ways and Raph was by his own admission barely involved with it beyond pre-production.

I dunno, I preferred D1 overall because I think they did a good job on the atmosphere. I think D2 had the best two levels in the series though.

D2 had better levels, but also ruined the Outsider, making it the far worse game.

 

[LarryTyphoid]

I think D1 is already a pretty bad game and D2 doubles down on everything bad about it. You can never sneak without constantly duck walking around like an asshole, complete with that fucking vignette, made even more severe than D1's, and you STILL can't toggle it off. You can get seen from guards from the other side of the level, and the light level matters even less than in D1. You have to rely on your superpowers even more because of how badly leaning was nerfed. D1's abstract first person perspective is replaced for pseudo body awareness with immersion breaking animations (most egregious with peeking through keyholes).

The stealth being so much more bullshit is rubbed in your face with a godawful rating system (YOU CAN PLAY IT *YOUR* WAY!!!! :DDDDDDDD). In my playthrough, I attempted to stealth my way through without save-scumming, and I was frequently insulted by the ratings screens giving me an "Assault" rating despite my best efforts to be stealthy. Yet the combat is easier than ever. You even get non-lethal options, so the choice between lethal and non-lethal is even more arbitrary and cosmetic than in D1.

The chaos system, the number one most frequently criticized aspect of D1, doubles down on its worst elements by being based on nothing but your level of lethality, with no regard to your approach otherwise, or, God forbid, specific mission objectives like Granny Rags's poisoning mission. So now the chaos system is even more of a black and white morality system than D1's. It still presents no real C&C. I like how you can kill Sokolov and Billie Lurk (I sure didn't like them), but the fact that you can only do so in the last level cements how pointless it is. Why not let me kill these shitters as soon as possible and pilot the ship myself?

The level design is sprawling with no rhyme or reason, guided by nothing but objective markers. A few levels through the game I stopped bothering to get bone charms and runes altogether, because of the sheer size of the levels and the sheer quantity of collectibles. It's like Donkey Kong 64 or something. It doesn't help that you need the heart to do so, and her dialogue is way worse than in D1. Her pool of lines is extremely small. Most of them consist of either chastising or praising the player for their chaos level, which gets EXTREMELY old if you're going for a high chaos run (contrary to popular belief, D1 really didn't attack the player for going high chaos). The dialogue not about your chaos level isn't even level specific - there's like 5 of them. All of them are just "woe is me, the world is so bad! The rich are so evil! I'm going to swoon!" It's some of the corniest writing I've ever heard - I can't believe a professional writer came up with this drivel. The most obnoxious line that I can remember is the one about the servant who was late with the tea - that one's as tripe as it is overly long.
And this relentless collecting further incentivizes the player to dispatch guards rather than sneak past them - because you're going to be backtracking constantly, and it's easier to take the guards out. So ghosting is a completely senseless and obnoxious challenge in D2. You could only think otherwise if you're accustomed to savescumming.

The story is significantly worse, shoehorning in two playable protagonists and out of place elements from D1's DLC. Didn't I kill this stupid witch already in The Brigmore Witches?
The worse part is how obviously WOKE D2's gotten. Arkane tries to be clever with it to trick stupid people who are still coping about this matter, but it's obvious. Women are now commonplace in the military, despite this not being the case in D1, and the Dishonored setting clearly falling around 200+ years ago. Again, the cope with this is "IT'S A FANTASY SETTING, YOU CAN DO WHATEVER", but D1 presented a world with period-accurate gender roles. It's a retcon to appeal to literally Anita Sarkeesian, who spoke directly with Arkane. Two of these brand new female guards even star in a lesbian romance on a roof in one level. Great. Then there's Emily's mysteriously gender-non specific lover, and the heavily implied gay romance with that one target in the time travel level.
We're somehow supposed to believe Sokolov is a good guy now despite witnessing him commit crimes against humanity in D1. Well, he ends up in a romance with a one armed, one eyed sassy black woman, so I guess that redeems him.

Forgive me if I've mistaken a few details but it's been a couple years since I played D2. It's shit and I won't be doing it again. Like I said, I think D1 is pretty bad and inferior to the games it's inspired by, but it is pretty replayable. I'll replay through D1 once every couple of years if I've got nothing better to do. D2's just garbage. And you couldn't pay me to play that Billie Lurk game.

Still haven't finished Prey. I've got better things to do and, in my free time, better games to play. Couldn't imagine being an Arkanefag.

 

[Tarkleigh]

I played the Mooncrash DLC in the last two weeks and was very pleasantly surprised. It is of course very different than the main game but a very good roguelite that gives a great new spin to Prey. It is much more fast-paced and because it gives you different characters to play allows you to experiment with abilities you did not choose in the main game. And there is even a pretty decent story which I did not expect in this kind of game. Of course, it is still a roguelite and therefore RNG based and I am very suprised anyone would make a DLC that is that different to the main game. I happen to like both genres but I am not surprised at all it did not sell that well.

I think Prey is actually a very good game, not a masterpiece like System Shock 2 but much closer to it than Bioshock was. With a different art style and better enemies, it could have been a hit.

 

[anvi]

I played the Mooncrash DLC in the last two weeks and was very pleasantly surprised. It is of course very different than the main game but a very good roguelite that gives a great new spin to Prey. It is much more fast-paced and because it gives you different characters to play allows you to experiment with abilities you did not choose in the main game. And there is even a pretty decent story which I did not expect in this kind of game. Of course, it is still a roguelite and therefore RNG based and I am very suprised anyone would make a DLC that is that different to the main game. I happen to like both genres but I am not surprised at all it did not sell that well.

I think Prey is actually a very good game, not a masterpiece like System Shock 2 but much closer to it than Bioshock was. With a different art style and better enemies, it could have been a hit.

I agree. It could have used a better name too.

 

[JDR13]

Still haven't finished Prey. I've got better things to do and, in my free time, better games to play. Couldn't imagine being an Arkanefag.

Better things like writing a six paragraph essay on what you don't like about Arkane and sounding like a butthurt faggot the entire time?

 

[SumDrunkGuy]

I thought the Dishonored games were kind of lame tbh. I don't think I bothered to finish the second one. They felt like shittier Deus Ex. Prey was more my jam. I liked Prey.

 

[Silverfish]

The worse part is how obviously WOKE D2's gotten.

Dishonored 2 is game about a clash between members of the monarchy, how women can't run a functional society, how only men can make moral choices, how gays have no beliefs and just go with whoever they heard from last and how technological advancement comes with an inherent moral cost. Arkane are probably the least woke AAA dev in this hemisphere.

 

[JDR13]

Arkane are was probably the least woke AAA dev in this hemisphere.

I fixed that for you...

 

[Modron]

I fixed that for you...

Let him keep his innocence, nobody tell him about Redfall.

 

[Silverfish]

Redfall will probably be like D2, Death of the Outsider and Prey (I haven't played Deathloop, so I can't comment) in that on the surface level, it'll pander to sjw tastes and tropes, but under the hood, it's violently shitting on all that stuff.

 

[JDR13]

Redfall will probably be like D2, Death of the Outsider and Prey (I haven't played Deathloop, so I can't comment) in that on the surface level, it'll pander to sjw tastes and tropes, but under the hood, it's violently shitting on all that stuff.

How did Prey pander to SJWs?

 

[Silverfish]

How did Prey pander to SJWs?

The marketing pushed the female version of Yu pretty hard, the main plot has an inescapable segment about uncovering a lesbian romance via audio logs, the staff of Talos 1 are Burger King Kid's Club levels of diverse, the few human enemies you encounter are generally white guys, empathy for others is allegedly a major theme, that kind of thing. Surface level stuff to keep the game journos at bay.

 

[JDR13]

How did Prey pander to SJWs?

The marketing pushed the female version of Yu pretty hard, the main plot has an inescapable segment about uncovering a lesbian romance via audio logs, the staff of Talos 1 are Burger King Kid's Club levels of diverse, the few human enemies you encounter are generally white guys, empathy for others is allegedly a major theme, that kind of thing. Surface level stuff to keep the game journos at bay.

Whew.... talk about reaching, but ok.

 

[racofer]

Tbh, without Raph at the helm, I doubt Dishonored 3 is something worth looking forward to.

D2 was superior to D1 in most ways and Raph was by his own admission barely involved with it beyond pre-production.

D2's number one mistake was using that piece of crap called Void Engine instead of the Unreal Engine they used on the first game.

 

[Silverfish]

Whew.... talk about reaching, but ok.

It's hardly reaching. As I said, that stuff is all window dressing, not the meat of what the game's actually saying.

 

[JDR13]

Whew.... talk about reaching, but ok.

It's hardly reaching. As I said, that stuff is all window dressing, not the meat of what the game's actually saying.

If all you're looking for is window dressing, we could probably claim 90% of games are "woke".

 

[Silverfish]

If all you're looking for is window dressing, we could probably claim 90% of games are "woke".

Sure, but that was explicitly my point in regards to Arkane. They pay just enough lip service to the woke mob to fly under the radar while subverting those concepts when you pay even a modicum of attention. Again, I can't speak for their entire catalogue, but the Dishonored series, Prey and possibly Deathloop (based purely on marketing materials) are, by the standards of modern day AAA devs, shockingly based.