Delivering the story

Arkane's alternate history is presented in a few different ways. The environments themselves tell a story — just walking through the garden-like Arboretum, for instance, will help you understand the breadth of research that was occurring onboard Talos I. Then there are the books, notes and "transcribe" audio memos dotted throughout every room. Some of them are personal, revealing heated arguments and bitter rivalries between employees. Others are insightful, explaining Transtar's influence and the public perception back on Earth. Reading and listening to them all will help you slowly piece together what's happened.

"It's sort of like ... I have this huge photograph, and every new thing I encounter and pick up increases the resolution of the photograph in my mind," Bare says. "That is, the picture in my mind of what this place is." Such a concept will be familiar to immersive sim fans. System Shock, BioShock and Deus Ex all feature rooms packed with written messages and note-to-self recordings. The more you read, look and listen, the more each game and its world come into focus.

Prey's use of environmental storytelling helps to counterbalance its game structure, which is neither linear nor nonlinear. Some missions are critical in order to complete the game, while others are optional and occasionally inaccessible depending on your actions. You can go (almost) wherever, whenever you like on Talos I, meaning how you uncover the central mystery and Arkane's alternate history is up to you. Some players, for instance, will find the museum early on and quickly piece together the Kennedy-era space program. Others will miss it completely, or only discover it 10, 20 or 30 hours later.

Every person's playthrough is different, which is both a blessing and a curse for Arkane. The freedom to explore makes your discoveries feel more personal, but on the flipside, they can be confusing or meaningless until you've found other, related pieces of correspondence on the ship. "My mental map of the story and the world might be totally different than yours because I didn't find that one character you found and rescued," Bare says. "Or I didn't read that one book. Or I didn't see that one poster. A lot of it is in the hands of the player versus me, as a level designer, trying to be an author and make sure that every single person experiences this one beat at this one time, and feels a certain way about it."

"We're totally OK with the player not seeing every beautiful, meticulous thing that we created."

There's a book, for example, written by an author called Lance B. Jenkins on the ship. An excerpt from the back cover praises the "alternate history novel" for its depiction of a Vietnam war: "But what if America had stood up for its allies in Vietnam? Would Communism still reign in the East? Would the Iron Curtain have fallen?" The insinuation, of course, is that the conflict never happened in Prey's timeline. Bare suspects that only 10 percent of players will find and read this blurb in the game.