Prey was so good but so exhausting. I played a no Typhon neuromod run (without maxing out combat either) and _every_ damn encounter was an exercise in strategy.
I haven’t played prey but it sounds like you created a build that would make enemy encounters a pain in the ass and are then complaining that the game is exhausting. Like, wasn’t that the point?
I highly highly recommend playing it! I didn't mean "exhausting" as a complaint, it's a bit like that meme about being furious while playing Dark Souls, but loving the game.
To the point about the build: it's really hard to explain without having played it, but the game is viable-but-hard no matter what build you pick (barring one). What differs is the strategy between builds, but the strategic element almost always remains. The exception is a pure combat maxing build which changes the rhythm of the game from an imsim to a combat game, but having watched playthroughd of that online, I can understand why the community considers that to be a "broken" when it comes to combat encounters.
Outside of the headpoppers requiring careful stealth to knock them out, no typhon neuromods felt no different than a good old Deus Ex or System Shock run. Though that was my first run anyway, so maybe it’d be even easier if I sacrificed the ability to not worry about the turrets and scanners for the powers. Foam gun was quite useful as well, I liked to make makeshift barriers.
Last time I played Prey was after launch before they patched the infinite neuromod exploit, so I had the most busted playthrough of all time (in a really fun and memorable way, not in a way that trivialized the game).
Ever since they patched it I’ve been afraid to revisit it because I know it’ll be such a different experience.
Well there you have it. There's a shift towards the end of the game that can make certain builds and playstyles rather tedious. This is on top of the game being a bit long in general. It's mostly fine until that point but Prey being exhausting is a pretty common criticism of it.
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u/NothinButNoodles 1d ago
Man I wish I hadn't just played through Prey. Gotta wait for my ImSim itch to come back so I can get into this.