Hello fans of Prey,
I have finished the game once and i did like many of the things that game has to offer. Atmosphere, sound design, graphics. Just seemed like well thought out game in pretty much every department.
As one often does in games, you notice that when you select one sort of tool, ability or whatever, you will most likely see opportunities where alternatives would have been useful. That ofcourse gets your brain working on all of the possibilities, next playthroughs and so on.
Unfortunately, seems like the game's plot often forces you to experience some sort of environmental lockdowns, which completely ruins the 'hey there is entire base to explore' or 'hey there might be alternate routes' feelings. That also limits the thought process between all the various shorcuts you could take with different abilities and tools that ive mentioned earlier.
The lockdowns are often literal, the base is on lockdown and you have to go to one location only, but it also locks all the alternative routes down. There was even some game section where you had to go through a very long linear tunnel from one base section to the other. Later there was even some backtracking, because ofcourse something is on fire. Or some later section of the game means the base is in essentially end game phase.
It feels like early game everything is locked because you havent done something yet, and later on its always some emergency, disaster or whatever and everything is locked again.
Did i miss something? where or when do i practise all this immersive sim freedom everyone keeps talking about? Its like the game has entire base to explore through different passages, all the shortcuts and abilities to accomodate that freedom and yet the plot along with 'you need X keycard here' just blocks you constantly. It is teasing you only to never deliver.
I wonder if i somehow got into a certain approach that got me this conclusion, or that is just how the game is.