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

[Morgoth]

Nice trolling, anus_pounder.

 

[Morgoth]

http://www.gameinformer.com/b/featu...r-look-at-preys-striking-neo-deco-design.aspx

A Deeper Look At Prey’s Striking ‘Neo Deco’ Design

From the outset, Arkane Studios took great pains to ensure that Prey wouldn’t be set in your typical video game space station. Instead of plain white corridors, Morgan Wu faces off against aliens in a diverse set of backdrops – from opulent living quarters to behind-the-walls sections that are solely focused on function. Talos I has a rich history of its own, which we explored in a previous feature, and the station’s past is represented through several visually distinct layers.

“We didn’t want to do sci-fi like everyone is doing it, so we came up with a narrative that drives the art and when you look at it you say, ‘Wow. I’ve never seen this before,’” says Raphael Colantonio, Prey’s creative director and president at Arkane Studios.

The station is essentially a Russian nesting doll, consisting of several different layers. Its core was built in the late 1950s, during the height of the space race between Russia and the United States. The two nations formed an alliance after a deadly encounter with an alien and a Russian satellite. The result of the Russian/U.S. collaboration was the Kletka, a reinforced capsule designed to keep the threat contained. From there, a space station was constructed, before it was eventually decommissioned. Decades later, a corporation called TranStar took over, expanding the orbiting structure into the Talos I that we see today. (Check out this video for a more-detailed recap of the events.)

That history isn’t just there to provide fodder for the game’s audio logs and emails. As players explore the various parts of Talos I, they can get a sense of passing through different eras – from the brushed aluminum and boxy lines of the ‘60s to a Neo Deco style that represents TranStar’s presence.

“There’s Deco, but we wanted to do something a bit different,” says art producer Jessie Boyer. “For this, we started off with inspiration from a hotel in New York City called the Viceroy. They do this really great interpretation of Deco that’s really modern.”

Art Deco isn’t a style that’s foreign to games. BioShock’s Rapture is a great example of the 1920’s-era style, which is characterized with clean lines and extravagant materials. Arkane’s art team says they didn’t want to adhere to as strict interpretation of the style. One of the biggest differences is how it incorporates more advanced technology, such as display panels, while retaining the overall elegance of the original inspirations.

The innermost core of the station was built purely with function in mind, and that’s where you’ll see elements such as white quilted insulation and gold foil – things that are often associated with early space exploration. We didn’t have space stations in real life when the Kletka and surrounding structures were built, so Arkane had to use a little creative license for the ‘60s-era sections.

“We wanted to make sure that we referenced really interesting technology from that era as well, and not look too out of place,” Boyer says. “So we looked at early IBM designs as well as designers such as Jacob Jensen for high-end consumer electronics, because they had a really striking aesthetic for the era.” That area of the station is filled with wood, along with elements such as brushed aluminum. Here, you see sharp edges, along with cooler color tones. “Whenever you layer this all together, it really starts to paint a picture of a world in contrast, which is what makes it really interesting and compelling.”

TranStar has spruced up the station where it makes sense – including an arboretum with a Falling Waters-inspired office for its CEO – but there are places where renovations simply aren’t feasible. There are, after all, deadly aliens aboard the station, which are being contained and experimented upon. In those containment areas, putting up elaborate candelabras or murals might not be the best use of resources. But you’ll see evidence of the company’s lavish spending elsewhere.

“TranStar is a private company with a lot of money, so they very deliberately said, ‘Yeah, we can make the space station out of plastic and metal, but we’re TranStar. There’s real wood on this space station. Actual leather seats,’” says lead designer Ricardo Bare.

“You can kind of see the visual history, and it’s more apparent in some levels than in others,” Boyers says. “It also really depends on the function of the level as well. Maybe some of the areas where there’s more restrictive security access, they don’t let renovators in there and spruce it up, so you can definitely see that it’s a bit older and more true to its roots than maybe some of the more public-facing areas.”

Arkane is working to tell a story within the environments themselves, and from what we saw during our visit, the hard work is paying off. Prey is shaping up to be a great-looking game, and we left their offices impressed by how cool the environments themselves were. By now, most of us has spent entirely too much time in drab space stations – or at least, virtually – and Prey’s interesting visual take is a refreshing change of pace.

 

[anus_pounder]

something something tire textures arma etc. etc.

 

[Morgoth]

http://www.gameinformer.com/b/featu...ways-prey-has-shocked-its-own-developers.aspx

Seven Ways Prey Has Shocked Its Own Developers

While some developers focus on telling linear stories, Arkane Studios is more interested in creating a series of interlaced systems and then letting players exploit the interplay between those systems to solve gameplay challenges in a variety of unexpected ways. Prey's freeform systems have even surprised its own developers several times. While talking with the team for our January cover story, we rounded up some of the most exciting stories on how Arkane has been dumbstruck by its own game.

Burst to get med pack
"There is a little medical bay where the door's broken. Of course, I could use Mimic, like we showed at QuakeCon and turn into a smaller object and roll through the crack in the door, or there's probably an alternate route I could find if I explored. In my play through last week, I didn't have any of those powers. I had kinetic blast, and I was really hurt, so what I did was put a kinetic blast behind the medkit and the blast knocked it over to me. That's why we try to simulate everything. We could have made the decision, 'Well medkits should not be physics objects, because you don't want to lose it in the world, but making them physics objects lets you do these sort of fun things like that." - Ricardo Bare | Lead Designer

Playing Catch
"Some of our powers just work magic in combination together. For example, leverage is a human type of ability which allows you to lift objects that are bigger than you could if you did not have it. There is another ability that you take from aliens, which is remote manipulation, so you can grab an object from a distance. If you combine both together, it's like you're a machine that throws huge objects at people. One time there was a fridge in the background, and a poltergeist [one of Prey's invisible aliens] threw it at me. As the fridge came at me, I used remote manipulation and leverage to throw it back. It's like we were playing catch." - Raphael Colantonio | Creative Director and President of Arkane Studios

Phantom Music
"Occasionally the musical instruments on the space station would start to play themselves. The poor audio guys were sitting with me trying to figure out what was going on, and a lot of times it's hard to debug stuff like this because it's systemic. They were like, 'We are not doing this. We swear we haven't put anything in this map to make this happen. We don't understand why the instruments keep playing themselves.' It took them a little bit to go, 'Wait a minute...it might not be you.' A poltergeist is playing these instruments." - Susan Kath | Senior Producer

Stuck On You
"A couple of weeks ago, I was just testing some random systems together and I never tried the combination before. I was in this map with catwalks overhead, and I use the lift power on a phantom. It made the phantom smack against the ceiling, and he was prone but stuck on the ceiling. I was like, 'Huh,' so I pulled my Gloo gun out and started shooting at the Phantom, which plastered him to the ceiling. And then the Lift power was over, so there was nothing holding him up there but the glue. He was stuck up there on the catwalk. I was giddy, so I did it again and made a video of it, and showed it to the team. 'This is why we're doing what we do.'" - Seth Shain | Lead Systems Designer, Associate Producer

Maybe I Don't Need That Health Pack
"One of the cool things about the Mimics is that they still surprise us. Even after three years, I still hear the people who work on this game on a daily basis jumping and shouting every once in a while. One of my favorites was actually hearing [creative director Raphael Colantonio] playing, and then I heard him shouting. 'I was almost dead, and I went to get a medkit and it was a mimic!'" - Susan Kath | Senior Producer

Flying Turrets
"You can fortify a turret with a higher level of repair, which gives it more health, because you can pick them up and take them around. But the turrets used to be stationary, totally static. Then one of our level designers hacked the turret so it could move and took the lift power and sent it up towards a balcony where a bunch of mimics were hanging out, and it just annihilated all those mimics. When we all saw that we were like, 'Okay, so turrets are going to be portable now.'" - Seth Shain | Lead Systems Designer, Associate Producer

Hello Operator
"There was a bug that came in the other day that I thought was really cool. One of the QA testers, she was falling from a great height and she was about to land in a group of aggressive Operators, [the stations defensive robots]. She was like, 'What do I do? What do I do! I don't have any ammo!' Then, at the last second, she mimicked one of them, and they basically stopped being aggressive to her, because they were like, 'Hey, you're one of us. That's cool.' And they went back to what they were doing. The QA tester thought it was a bug, and I was like, 'No, I think that works perfectly." - Susan Kath | Senior Producer

 

[toro]

Who wants to bet that this game will be a disappointment?

 

[The Decline]

Who wants to bet that this game will be a disappointment?

That's a given these days, but they are saying a lot of the right things.

 

[toro]

Who wants to bet that this game will be a disappointment?

That's a given these days, but they are saying a lot of the right things.

True. But they also avoid saying some things.

For example: their PR bullshit stops with the narrative. There is no doubt that systems will make the game immersive but they forget to mention that SS/SS2 story was good in that regard.

The story needs a great villain in order to reach its potential. Unfortunately for them - Shodan is a villain which cannot be replicated easily - and despite their powers the aliens in Prey look somewhat "generic" and bland.

People forget that the story in both Dishonored(s) is underwhelming to say the least (*it's a retarded mess) and I don't think Arkane will suddenly discover how to do a great narrative.

They do exceptionally good worlds design but they simply fail to implement compelling narratives in those worlds.

This is the reason why I'm weary of this. They keep shoveling PR bullshit about systems and powers but they are pretty silent about the narrative.

Yeah, I will be shocked to learn that Morgan was used for experiments. Wouldn't be more interesting to have a non-amnesiac protagonist? It would but that's harder to implement.

 

[Latelistener]

To be a disappointment the game needs to generate some hype, but at this point no one really cares (probably because no one gives a shit about System Shock anymore).
Personally, I think it will be above average, but by how much remains to be seen. After all, not many developer actually try to copy SS these days (they usually take some juicy parts), so that's something.

 

[anus_pounder]

Who wants to bet that this game will be a disappointment?

Dishonored devs, almost certainly gonna be a disappointment. But I'm still holding out that this will be good.

 

[Morality Games]

Who wants to bet that this game will be a disappointment?

I don't think gamers have expectations that can be disappointed anymore. We've systematically hit every low there is.

 

[Latelistener]

Who wants to bet that this game will be a disappointment?

I don't think gamers have expectations that can be disappointed anymore. We've systematically hit every low there is.

 

[Morgoth]

http://www.gameinformer.com/b/features/archive/2016/12/26/is-prey-the-next-great-horror-game.aspx

Is Prey The Next Great Horror Game?

In much the same way that BioShock had its fair share of jumpscares and unsettling moments but wasn't necessarily a horror game, Prey from Arkane Studios straddles an interesting line. While visiting the studio (that created Dishonored) for our cover story on Prey, we spoke to the game's lead designer Ricardo Bare about whether or not the immersive game set on an alien-riddled space station will appeal to pure horror game fans.

Watch the video below to learn why Prey might leave you on edge more than you think...

No youtube version available yet.

 

[Morgoth]

http://www.gameinformer.com/b/featu...e-reasons-dishonored-fans-will-love-prey.aspx

Arkane Knowledge: Five Reasons Dishonored Fans Will Love Prey

Arkane Studios is a big fan of Looking Glass Studios. “I don’t think it’s a secret that with Dishonored we started with Thief in mind, and with Prey we started with System Shock in mind,” says creative director and president of Arkane Studios Raphael Colantonio. “You can call us fanboys of those games if you want.”

Like Looking Glass Studios’ classics, both the Dishonored series and Prey share a philosophy that allows players to find creative solutions to gameplay challenges. And while Prey is far more than “Dishonored in space,” here are five reasons why fans of Arkane’s other big first-person series will want to keep their eye on Prey.

Reason One: Actual Consequences
Those who played Dishonored quickly realized their actions had consequences. Dishonored players who ruthlessly left dead bodies in their wake only added to the city's disease-ridden streets, which ultimately created more rat swarms and plague victims, which in turn fostered a deadlier environment to navigate later in the game. On the other hand, some missions were easier to complete when you could just chop off your target's head. Fans can expect Prey to adapt similarly to their playstyle.

"One thing that we believe in very strongly is that the game should react to the player with actual consequences," says lead designer Ricardo Bare. "This is just a subjective point of disagreement, but I think that some people were complaining about, 'I picked powers and had fun killing people and the game said I did bad things,' and we were like, 'Yup. You did!' And we personally like that. We like the game to reflect back, 'Hey, you did a bunch of terrible things, and the world is more terrible now.'"

Reason Two: A Lore-Built World
The Dishonored games weren't praised for their storytelling, but they did create rich environments that felt alive. Arkane spent a long time building the world of Dishonored, but only a portion of that information went into the game's script - much of the rest was found in the library of books, letters, and diaries scattered throughout the game's environments.

Like in Dishonored, the lore of the world of Prey is much bigger than the game itself. Lore hounds will find plenty of information on the world, its characters, and its history buried into the game's environments. Some of this information is contained inside tiny PDA-like devices called TranScribes, and Arkane even researched the technology behind how these little recorders might work.

"Fictionally, it's like everybody's portable laptop slash PDA, which is proprietary to TranStar employees," says Bare. "I get that there's one dude who journals, but not everybody journals. It's a little thing, but it's a pet peeve of mine. Can we do this but not do the everybody leaves an audio log by their dead body kind of thing? Instead, everyone has an instant messenger device, and those things have conversation histories. Why not have an audio conversation history, so when you find this dead guy's thing here's his conversation history."

Reason Three: Clean Interface
This one doesn't sound sexy, but a good user interface goes a long way towards making a game more user-friendly. Dishonored kept its screen relatively simple, making things like health bars and ammo counts as unobtrusive as possible. However, Arkane realized sometimes players need certain information in order to have a better gameplay experience. Still, the studio believes that even when a game gives players information that its protagonist would never have, it still needs to deliver that information in an elegant fashion.

"We have less fear about having an interface that is exposing some stuff to the player," says Colantonio. "In Dishonored, we had the stealth indicator that showed when NPCs could see you. It took us forever to admit that we needed that. It's an abstraction the player character doesn't see. It's important information and creates a better game experience, but it's not like it's disrupting the immersion. There was a fear of that initially, but we decided we needed to give the player the information that's useful."

Reason Four: Deeper RPG Systems
As players explore the space station Talos I, they will discover a variety of chipsets, which they can use to upgrade their gear and abilities. These chipsets work a bit like the bone charms in Dishonored, in that players will be able to equip chipsets in several ways, upgrading the size of their inventory, granting them the ability to repair things, or using them to increase the strength of their alien powers. Another big change from Dishonored is that players will see the exact amount of damage they dish out, represented by small numbers popping of enemies during each attack.

"As you upgrade your firearms skill, as you upgrade your firearm itself, you see those numbers get bigger," says lead systems designer Seth Shain. "And range is a factor, because we don't want players to annihilate everything from across the level. Having the numbers present makes the whole thing feel a little more stat-based. That's another way we're a little more RPG-ish than Dishonored. In Dishonored it was a little more tactical, fast action stuff. You knew a city guard had about three sword slashes worth of health, whereas in Prey it's like you can shoot a mimic with several bullets from far away or a couple of bullets close up. Or one upgraded bullet."

Reason Five: Player Agency
With all its games, Arkane aims to empower players as much as possible. In Dishonored, players became supernatural assassins with an impressive array of uncanny powers. However, it was also possible for players to play through the entire game without killing anyone or without even using those powers. Prey isn't as stealthy as Dishonored, and at times, players will be encouraged to kill the aliens they encounter on Talos I. However, it is still possible to play Prey without using any of the alien powers. In fact, there are consequences for using these alien talents - it's a little bit of a trade-off. Arkane hopes players will feel a similar level of freedom to tackle the game's challenges in a variety of ways.

"We fight really hard for player agency, and we fight really hard to keep the player as empowered as possible, and sometimes we have to fight lots of constraints with tech or lots of little problems," says Shain. "Honestly, it's amazing. So many things that show up on YouTube that I've seen for Dishonored are these amazing moments where it's like, 'That's cool, but it never even occurred to any of us to try that. That is awesome!' We wouldn't see anything like that without Twitch, without YouTube. I'm sure we'll see a lot more crazy stuff when Prey releases."

 

[DeepOcean]

"With all its games, Arkane aims to empower players as much as possible. In Dishonored, players became supernatural assassins with an impressive array of uncanny powers. However, it was also possible for players to play through the entire game without killing anyone or without even using those powers. Prey isn't as stealthy as Dishonored, and at times, players will be encouraged to kill the aliens they encounter on Talos I. However, it is still possible to play Prey without using any of the alien powers. In fact, there are consequences for using these alien talents - it's a little bit of a trade-off. Arkane hopes players will feel a similar level of freedom to tackle the game's challenges in a variety of ways.

"We fight really hard for player agency, and we fight really hard to keep the player as empowered as possible, and sometimes we have to fight lots of constraints with tech or lots of little problems," says Shain. "Honestly, it's amazing. So many things that show up on YouTube that I've seen for Dishonored are these amazing moments where it's like, 'That's cool, but it never even occurred to any of us to try that. That is awesome!' We wouldn't see anything like that without Twitch, without YouTube. I'm sure we'll see a lot more crazy stuff when Prey releases."

I just hoped they didn't take "empower" the player that seriously.

 

[Morgoth]

I hope their formula crashes and burns and Arkane is forced to make games liek DOOM 2016 that truly EMPOWAHS the player cuz we definitely need moar games like DOOM 2016!!!!1

 

[Morality Games]

I hope their formula crashes and burns and Arkane is forced to make games liek DOOM 2016 that truly EMPOWAHS the player cuz we definitely need moar games like DOOM 2016!!!!1

Doom is a great shooter game that finally put multiplayer in its proper relation to the single player after years (a decade? two decades?) of bullshit.

Spoiler

In truth, I wish the multiplayer was better, but whatever

 

[Ash]

I hope their formula crashes and burns

Well, maybe not that far but it is a streamlined, bastardized, commercialized take on Looking Glass' design philosophy. I don't want to support that yet I don't want to see it lose out to awesome button cinematic pay to win walking sim rehash 2016 gaming, so it's a conflict of interest.

It's a shame, because Arkane's best game (Arx Fatalis) was made when they were most resource-starved. Now we'll never get to see what they're truly capable of with a big budget.

To be a disappointment the game needs to generate some hype, but at this point no one really cares (probably because no one gives a shit about System Shock anymore).

Eh? A disappointment on a personal level was clearly what was meant. Who gives a shit if another retarded hype train fails to meet its destination or not? The more of those the better actually, maybe gamers will finally get a clue after being burned time and time again.

 

[DeepOcean]

They are hyping the Ai of the mimics but mimics can be destroyed with one hit from what I saw on the video and most of the time it had been you versus one of them, really skeptical that this will go beyond cheap scripted jump scares here and there. If the mimics were dangerous, I could see they faking being objects as something interesting. From what I saw on the gameplay trailer, it is Arkane making a big deal of something that doesn't seem that interesting.

There is a scene where five or so mimics go against you, the encounter is finished right after you meet them by a huge AoE blast power, it could be just show off for the trailer and the game be actually more difficult but it is Arkane we are talking about... easy mode all the way baby.

Shooting those little gas spiders doesn't seem that satisfying especially as it appears they are going to be the most prolific enemy. I hate little melee enemies on all FPS games I played, they are shit.

They didn't talk of resource management, System Shock 2 is a great game for more than just level design and SHODAN, the scaveging for resources was something that built desperation and made the enemies even more threatening, on the last dificult mode, you felt desperation as the enemies kept coming but your resources not. They did tried to replicate this on Bioshock but that lack of resources only lasted on the first level, afterwards, you had more resources than you knew what to do about, Dishonored too isn't exactly a game where resources are rare, even more so on Dishonored 2 with each map having a black market vendor.

I dunno, they seem to be going after the Bioshock market now as Irrational left the boat, yeah, Bioshock, because if any of you think this will be a real System Shock game, you are deluding yourselves. This will be Bioshock with alien ghosts and a better level design, that is it.

 

[Cyberarmy]

I hate little melee enemies on all FPS games I played, they are shit.

 

[Latelistener]

Eh? A disappointment on a personal level was clearly what was meant. Who gives a shit if another retarded hype train fails to meet its destination or not? The more of those the better actually, maybe gamers will finally get a clue after being burned time and time again.

In that case he's already disappointed, simply because he want to, and most likely won't change his mind.
But he asked about betting that it will be shit, and I will not bet on that, as we probably have a different level of expectations.
I will accept the game as long as it won't be a disaster like Monkey Divided.

 

[Ash]

Nah, there's a lot to go off of. Everything Arkane says and does, and has done for the past fourteen years post-Arx. This game very likely won't satisfy the old school with high standards.
Still will likely be "good for what it is" just as dishonored before it was, but some of us don't settle for that. Don't embrace the decline, that's letting it win.

 

[Shackleton]

There is a scene where five or so mimics go against you, the encounter is finished right after you meet them by a huge AoE blast power, it could be just show off for the trailer and the game be actually more difficult but it is Arkane we are talking about... easy mode all the way baby.

Yeah, this is what I'm most worried about. They keep hyping up all this cool stuff you can do, like glueing enemies to walls and mimicking them yourself so they're not hostile, but how the hell are they going to ensure they generate enough challenge to make things like this not either a) overpowered or b) useless fluff?

All the stuff I've read so far has me hyped for this game, but if it's a boring cakewalk like I found the first Dishonored then I'll be gutted. That's the problem with giving players loads of tools- it's damn hard to get the balance right so you keep things challenging for the 'git gud' crowd without making it so the unwashed masses who couldn't find Caius Cosades quit in frustration and leave 1 star reviews on Steam.

 

[Morgoth]

http://www.gameinformer.com/b/podca.../answering-prey-39-s-lingering-questions.aspx

Answering Prey's Lingering Questions

We hope you've enjoyed our month of exclusive content covering Prey from Arkane Studios. We're excited about this game, and we're glad that the community submitted questions to ask the game's creative director Raphael Colantonio and lead designer Ricardo Bare. There are still plenty of mysteries to solve surrounding this sci-fi experience, but Colantonio and Bare shed some light on key details in this episode of the podcast. Check it out if you want to learn more about comparisons to Dishonored, BioShock, and the team's drive to have a smooth launch on PC.

 

[Ash]

Check it out if you want to learn more about comparisons to Dishonored, BioShock, and the team's drive to have a smooth launch on PC.

 

[MuscleSpark]

Nice interview with a lot of juicy details. Shame that there was absolutely zero mention of Ultima Underworld (although they mentioned Arx a lot), whether Prey would have dialogue trees or not, and what the difficulty options actually change. It definitely sounds a lot more streamlined and modern in comparison to the older games, but still looking forward to it since there's a dearth of these kinds of immersive simulators nowadays.