Prey (2006)

Prey
Developers: Human Head Studios, Venom Games (360) Publisher: 2K Games Platforms: Windows, Xbox 360, Mac OS X, Linux Released internationally: December 7, 2008 (Linux) Released in US: July 11, 2006 (Win/360), January 15, 2007 (Mac OS X) Released in EU: July 14, 2006 (Win/360) This game has revisional differences. This game has a development article This game has a prototype article This game has a prerelease article

The 2006 Prey is a first-person shooter with portals and wall-walking. The player takes control of Cherokee man Domasi "Tommy" Tawodi, who along with his girlfriend Jen and grandfather Enisi gets abducted by an alien spaceship known as The Sphere. It's now up to Tommy to fight back against The Sphere and save humanity from destruction with an arsenal of extraterritorial guns and spiritual powers.

The game is well-known for its long development time and numerous scrapped versions. It is also not to be confused with Arkane Studio's 2017 game.

To do: There's a LOT, including: Considering this game's history, it's possible that there are leftovers from earlier builds. Prototype/Tech demo from 1995! and possibly some noteworthy differences in the various demos of the game. Prerelease page, for obvious reasons. Development page, for things like design docs and audition audio. Further expansion of this article is very much in need. The game's SDK was released (mainly for modding), not only might it have unused content, but there could also be unused content in-game associated with it. Like Duke Nukem Forever, The Japanese release likely has differences from the international versions (mostly likely toning down gore and dismemberment), be sure to cover and investigate.

Sub-pages

Development Info

Prototype Info

Prerelease Info

Feeding Tower Easter Egg

To do: Possibly add a screenshot of the Feeding Tower easter egg in-game

In one of the levels called the "Feeding Tower" in the game files, this image with the filename feedbted.tga of a bearded man holding a teddy bear (or a stuffed lion?) can be seen on one of the columns at the pitch dark edge of the level. It is only reachable and lit up by the exoskeleton shuttle.

Revisional Changes

To do: Note changelogs, if any, of Xbox 360/Mac/Linux versions

v1.1

The first patch released for the game on August 30, 2006, with lots of bug fixes:

• Multiplayer bandwidth optimization to allow better play on higher latency connections
• Fixed projectile effects not showing up on dedicated servers
• Fixed crash at startup due to time/date validation on some systems
• Fixed crash at startup due to querying old OpenAL drivers
• Fixed an occasional crash on the dedicated server
• Fixed a crash when using image_usecache cvar with very big textures. Textures whose lowest mip map doesn't fit will be default texture. This was causing a crash when a modified *prey was loading "Mother's Embrace".
• Fixed a crash on some machines when reading savegames.
• Some timedemo features not appearing if you restart prey between record/playback
• Added widescreen resolutions to menus
• Updated multiplayer browser to fix servers not showing up due to DNS resolution
• Updated multiplayer browser not keeping join button up to date when server summary wasn't the active tab.
• Updated multiplayer browser so punkbuster icons show up in their column properly
• Updated multiplayer browser so mod games' icons show up properly updated multiplayer browser so server scanning is more consistent on slower connections
• Fixed multiplayer weapon exploit
• Bumped network protocol version. Unpatched games will not be able to play online with patched games. This means that if you are playing v1.0, you can not play against or on servers running v1.1 (and vice versa).

(Source: http://legacy.3drealms.com/news/2006/08/prey_v11_pc_patch_release.html)

v1.2

The second patch released on October 10, 2006, which came with more bug fixes and extra content. The extra content included was made free DLC on the Xbox 360 and has to be individually downloaded:

• 4 new maps for multiplayer are added: Gravity Lab, Topillogical, Tunnel Rat and DM Space Oddity.
• 6 new models for multiplayer are added: Jen, Becky, Elhuit, Mother, Alien Hunter and Elite Alien Hunter.

The update's bug fixes are follows:

• Network protocol version bump (will no longer be able to see 1.1 or 1.0 servers)
• Installer will now update uninstaller. This fixes the missing installer problem.
• Game DLL interface bump for (then) upcoming mod SDK release (so mods will only work with v1.2)
• Fix for a weapon switch exploit

(Source: http://legacy.3drealms.com/news/2006/10/prey_v12_pc_patch_release.html)

v1.3

The third patch for the game released on February 14, 2007. This patch didn't come with any new content or bug fixes, but instead came with compatibility files for the Mac port of Prey (meaning PC users can play against Mac users and vice versa).

(Source: http://legacy.3drealms.com/news/2007/02/prey_v13_pc_patch_release.html)

v1.4

The fourth and last patch released on January 10, 2008, like the pervious patch it is a small update done to add compatibility files to account for the Japanese release of Prey and to remove the disc check from the game.

(Source: http://legacy.3drealms.com/news/2008/01/prey_v14_patch_released.html)