Prey

I almost never write Steam reviews, but I genuinely felt like Prey deserved one. I went into this game with basically no expectations. I bought it on sale because I wanted to try something different, and somehow it ended up becoming one of my favorite games I have ever played. One of the things that impressed me the most was how immersive the whole experience is. Talos I does not feel like just another map or setting. It actually feels like a real place, and throughout the game you are slowly trying to understand what happened there while also trying to survive. I was constantly paying attention to my surroundings, reading emails, listening to recordings, looking for clues and trying to connect everything together. The game does a really good job of making you feel like you are discovering the story yourself instead of simply having it explained to you. I also really loved how much freedom the game gives you. Most situations have more than one solution, so exploring and experimenting actually feels rewarding. You rarely feel like you are just following a marker from one objective to another. It feels much more like you are actually living through the situation and figuring things out in your own way. But for me, the story is what really made Prey special. The themes of identity, memory, humanity and choice stayed in my head even when I was not playing. I kept questioning the characters, changing my opinion about them, and thinking much more seriously about some of the decisions I was making than I expected to. About the ending....Obviously I will not spoil anything, but it genuinely caught me completely off guard. It made me rethink so many things that had happened throughout the game, and somehow made the entire experience even more memorable for me. Prey is tense, intelligent, creative, atmospheric and incredibly immersive. In my opinion, it is genuinely a work of art.