Via Game Informer, Arkane Studios -- the developer behind the recent Dishonored 2 -- has released a slab of new details about the alien enemies you can find in its upcoming first-person shooter Prey. In addition to all of the information about the game's enemies, lead designer Ricardo Bare also revealed in his description of an enemy type that the game doesn't "have anything like boss fights."
But before we dive into any of that, here is some backstory:
In Prey's alternate history, man first began to reach for the stars in the 1950, unfortunately one of the first things mankind came across was an alien menace called the Typhon, a small, shadow-like creature that was so hostile to humanity's existence that scientists locked the creature up inside an orbital space station. Jump ahead 70 years, and the small orbital makeshift prison has turned into a huge research facility for mega-corporation TranStar, and that single locked away Typhon has evolved into an entire race of hostile creatures.
Here are those creatures:
Cystoids -
Cystoids are the smallest Typhon creatures that players will come across. About the size of a softball, what Cystoids lack in size they make up for with pure explosive firepower. Aka, they explode. Cystoids, live in Cystoid Nests, and travel in packs. Further, Cystoids aren't very complex, so the moment they see you, they take off at you on a Kamikaze mission. As you would guess, when Cystoids explode, they kill themselves, so as long as players are aware of their surroundings, these little guys can be easily dealt with.
Lead Designer Ricardo Bare's Take:
“They have the smallest minds. They’re like a creature – like a fish – they’re very simple. They’re placed in these nests almost like mines, and they’re attracted to motion – anything like a physics object or a player running past them. [Outside of zero g], they roll on the ground like a carpet of soccer balls chasing you.”
Mimics -
The Mimic was the first Typhon humans encountered. These arachnid-like Typhons posses the ability to camouflage themselves by assuming the form of essentially any ordinary object within the environment (so things like trash cans and coffee mugs). Mimics are also said to be incredibly agile and can bounce around the environment quite skillfully. They are good at dodging gunfire, and kill by wrapping their tendrils around their victim's throat. Interestingly, players can dismantle Mimics, and learn their abilities from themselves.
Lead Designer Ricardo Bare's Take:
They’re sort of the progenitors of the whole ecology. One Mimic can start the whole thing all over again, if just one survives. Whenever they duplicate, they’re sort of the scouts. After killing a human or any living thing, they sort of absorb their life force, and then they duplicate. And they repeat that process. Of course, in the game, their main function is to hide and ambush the player.”
Phantoms -
Phantoms are crew members whose bodies were corrupted by Typhon energy and turned into alien soldiers. Further, they are some of the most common enemies you will encounter in the game, and come in a variety of flavors. For example, thermal Phantoms are pyromaniacs who can light the environment on fire. The Etheric Phantom creates duplicates of itself and emits toxic clouds that damage normal matter. The Voltaic Phantom shocks your system with a barrage of lightning-based attacks. There are said to be more variations, but no further details on other variations were divulged. Lastly, Phantoms are also said to contain the ability to emit a ghostly noise that sounds a parrot attempt at human speech, adding to their tension factor.
Lead Designer Ricardo Bare's Take:
“There are different kinds of Phantoms. The later into the game you go, you start to see more variations on them. Some of it isn’t predetermined, some of its randomized, so you might have a different kind of Phantom than another player, which means you have different access to powers if you’re scanning aliens for powers.”
Poltergeists -
Poltergeists are the only known Typhon that posses the ability to render itself invisible. It should therefore come as no surprise, these guys are master of the ambush. How they work is they find a place within environment, and then began to lurk around, and haunt it. Further, poltergeist aren't always hostile, and it only make its presence known when it starts messing with the environment or throwing things across the room. However, sometimes Poltergeists will inexplicably attack you with a levitation spell, that makes you easy prey for other aliens. Because, Poltergeists blip in and out of the visible spectrum, they can be very difficult enemy to handle.
Lead Designer Ricardo Bare's Take:
“It’s like a half-malformed, didn’t-quite-bake-long-enough Phantom. They’re weaker than the more advanced Phantoms but they’re about on the same level as the base Phantoms. They lurk around and sort of haunt an area and mess around with stuff and get in your head a little, and then wait for an opportunity to start throwing things at you and throw you into the air.”
Telepaths -
Slow, but deadly. These Beholder-like beasts float through the environment and overpower the minds of anyone in their presence. Telepaths contain the ability to command a horde of mind-slaves, as well throw deadly blast of psychic energy that brings players to the brink of death.
Lead Designer Ricardo Bare's Take:
“We don’t have anything like boss fights in the game, but because of the way the A.I. works, [Telepaths] feel like a miniboss. He owns an area and typically has a cluster of humans that he’s taken over. The humans are interesting, because they are aware of the fact that they’ve been possessed, so if they see you they’ll say things like, ‘I can’t stop myself. Run, get away. We’re both going to die,’ that kind of thing. That presents the player with an interesting choice. Do I cap this person, but they’re actually a human being, or do I try to find a way to avoid them or take them down nonlethally?”
Nightmare -
Not much is currently known about the Nightmare, other than it is most biggest, strongest, and most dangerous of any Typhon. Said to be reminiscent of the Nemesis monster from Resident Evil 3, the Nightmare constantly chases players through the entire space station.
Lead Designer Ricardo Bare's Take:
“The Nightmare was specifically created to kill you, because the Typhons recognize you as some kind of anomaly that’s resisting them and threatening their system. The more alien powers you install, the more it becomes aware of you and can track you down. That’s a dynamic system. So I can be in the cafeteria somewhere and jam 15 Neuromods into my eye, and all of a sudden hear this huge roar, and the Nightmare is in the level. He’s in the world, hunting you, but he doesn’t know where you are unless you stumble into him or do things like install a bunch of neuromods.”
And that’s all she wrote folks. You can check out all of our previous coverage on Prey here.
Below, you can check out three art images that Arkane released for a few of the game's enemies. Pictured, in order from left to right, is: Cystoids, Phantoms, and Telepaths.