Prey - On This Day

At the beginning of this century, linear first-person shooters were still being made and next to established franchises like Doom or Unreal Tournament, games tried to be as imaginative as possible. One of the products of that effort was Prey, a game that came out exactly 16 years ago today. In it, we as the Indian Tommy saved the country from being kidnapped by some nasty aliens.

Prey traces its roots back to 1995 when it was created by the creators of Duke Nukem. However, the concept of the game changed several times. Until the nineties, it changed designers three times and after being put on hiatus, it returned only in 2005, when it was announced that is, a year later when it was launched for PC and Xbox 360.

Prey is remembered for its imaginative weapons and portal mechanics that kept the levels dynamic and varied, even though the whole thing was linear. The interesting thing was that there was no Game Over in this game, but the main character after dying moved to the spiritual world where he fought to return to life. The character of Domasi Tawodi, or Tommy, was also interesting who did not belong to the group of silent protagonists but expressed his sufferings loudly.

Upon its release Prey received excellent reviews and sold millions of copies in its first three months. However, the future was not very bright for this series. The sequel was in development for a good seven years before they canceled it and instead we got a completely different game. 2017's Prey was also a great game, but still had (almost) nothing to do with the 2006 original.