Prey
Crafting the Story of Prey
Prey
For Creative Director Raphael Colantonio, inspiration hit while he was 40,000 feet above Earth.
Which is only fitting, considering Prey is set on an alien-infested orbiting space station miles from our planet.
“I was on the plane, returning from a vacation, and it was a super long flight,” Colantonio recalls. “That’s when I wrote the main arc for Prey.”
But Colantonio’s quick start was just the beginning of the long journey to craft the deep narrative and richly realized world of Prey. Upon his return to his office in Austin, Colantonio brought in the team at Arkane Studios to flesh out his idea, to mold it, to adapt it, and to create everything from the alien ecology, to the space station design, to the supporting characters and dialogue. Along the way, several key contractors joined the studio to help with Prey’s story in a multi-year process that’s resulted in this epic sci-fi thriller full of surprising twists and thrilling turns.
“We had many long sessions with the level designers, discussing the game’s high-level idea,” says Lead Designer Ricardo Bare. At the same time, the studio worked with the art team developing the world itself, including a backstory that involved President Kennedy surviving the assassination attempt, a renewed focus on the space race, a cooperative effort with the Soviet Union, and the whole Neo-Deco vibe that defines the look and feel of Talos I. (And that’s not to mention the countless hours perusing research covering everything from real rocket science to pseudo-scientific studies on aliens and the paranormal.)
“It probably took a year before we actually came up with the narrative of the 60s, along with the all of the history and layers that became the pillars of the game,” Colantonio says.
“It was a long time before we were even creating dialogue,” Bare adds. “We initially focused on structure with level designers, motives, objectives, backstory with the artists. And then we were just grinding on our one-page synopsis over and over to get it refined.”
Enter Avellone
Along the way, Arkane looped in some outside voices as well. Harvey Smith, who was now fully focused on Dishonored 2 at Arkane’s Lyon studio, helped come up with a rationale for the existence of the Typhon aliens. Austin Grossman, an award-winning writer who worked on System Shock along with Dishonored and Dishonored 2, helped refine some of the early ideas in the original synopsis, including how main character Morgan Yu would uncover his missing memories. And then the team reached out to industry legend Chris Avellone (Fallout 2, Fallout: New Vegas, Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance) to join the writing team – which was a dream come true for Ricardo Bare.
“Before I was even in the games industry, one of my favorite games of all time was Planescape: Torment,” Bare says. “There were several other games I really liked that had kickass characters as well. I later realized they were all written by the same guy.” Bare met Avellone for the first time when they were on a panel together at PAX East in 2013. “It was a cool fanboy moment for me,” he smiles.
The admiration was mutual, and Avellone jumped at the chance to work with Arkane. Colantonio initially reached out to Avellone, but he was busy at the time – something Avellone wanted to rectify as soon as his schedule cleared up. “I dropped Raf a line and asked if he’d still be interested in working together,” he says. “It was a quick conversation, and things went from there to visiting the studio, seeing the pitch for the game, the pillars – both for the game and the studio’s approach to development, which shows in their titles – and dissecting the design docs.”
Avellone also looked forward to reuniting with his former PAX co-panelist. “I already knew Prey’s lead designer and lead writer Ricardo Bare from previous narrative gatherings and I’d read his work and enjoyed it. (Among his many talents, he made dwarves terrifying in his novel Jack of Hearts.) So working with the two of them and the Arkane crew seemed like a great opportunity – and it was.”
Characters with Character
Avellone immediately set to work – not just on offering his feedback and insights into the story but also in developing many of the side-characters and side-quests. “I’ve always admired Chris’ characters,” Colantonio says. “He’s created some really cool characters with some intriguing dilemmas. They often lead to quests where you as a player find yourself in weird situations where you don’t know exactly what to do – and whatever you do, you feel like you didn’t quite make the right decision.”
“Aside from a collection of minor characters, I worked on about five other major characters and their arcs in the game,” Avellone says. Among his favorites: neuroscientist Dayo Igwe and Chief Systems Engineer Mikhaila Ilyushin. “Their arcs have some of my favorite moments.”
But don’t think of Dr. Igwe and his cohorts as “just” side characters. Because Morgan Yu is a bit a cipher – a person whose past is hazy, and whose memories are missing – these other characters play a major role in discovering who you are. “They help inform the context of the player’s choices from their own perspective,” Avellone says. “They also flesh out the larger universe of Prey, and the impact that Talos I and TranStar have on the world from a scientific, social and military perspective. Each NPC also has their own take on Morgan Yu as well, which the player may need to puzzle out.”
“When you encounter side-characters like Mikhaila and Igwe, they know things about you,” Bare adds. “They know things about the former Morgan. In conversation with them, they’ll mention those things and they’ll reveal something about who you used to be. Which is a fun way to find out about yourself.”
Action and Reaction
Avellone was also a great fit for Arkane because his general approach closely mirrors Arkane’s core philosophy. “He uses a different vocabulary than we do, but he’s essentially talking about the same thing,” Bare says. “He came in talking a lot about ‘reactivity,’ which is the idea that when I do something cool or interact with these characters or do something in the world, I want the characters to react to that. I want the things that I do to have a ripple effect. And that meshes really well with what we’re trying to do with Prey.”
“In terms of narrative structure, it was interesting to bring my previous role-playing narrative sensibilities and reactivity to an FPS,” Avellone adds. “I was both able to share a lot and learn a lot at the same time.”
Avellone’s quirky humor also made him a great fit for Prey’s story. “He always has a little bit of dark humor in his characters and in his dialogue,” Colantonio says. “It fits the dark mood of our game.”
Avellone cites the move Aliens as an inspiration for his approach to writing. “At its core, Aliens is an action-suspense movie. It rarely lets up,” he says. “However, what some people fail to appreciate is that because of the writing and the characters, Aliens is one of the funniest movies ever. Better, the comedic moments ‘fit’ because of the character reactions and the empathy for their responses – Bill Paxton, especially, but it applies to almost everyone. They’re genuinely funny bits, even in the context of a horror-suspense movie, and they’re timed with the narrative pacing.”
For Avellone, Prey is a lot like Aliens in that regard. As suspenseful as the game can be, Prey needs to have moments that break the tension in order to keep the experience from flattening out. “I think it’s good to include humor as long as you don’t undermine the experience, and walking that fine line I think is what Prey does successfully.”
Referencing the Reployer
A perfect example of this humor can be found in a lowly device called the Reployer. Designed by an artist at Arkane, the Reployer started appearing on desks and in offices throughout Talos I – but no one could tell anyone what exactly it did. Was it a printer? A space-age fax machine? A photocopier? Again and again in team meetings, someone would inevitably ask about it, and no one would have an answer.
“We almost cut this from the game three times,” Colantonio says. “I even had a few ‘fights’ with [Lead Visual Designer] Manu [Petit], telling him I never want to see that thing again – until we eventually turned it into a joke and said, ‘What if no one aboard the space station knows what that object is? Let’s give it an obscure name like Reployer and let’s have people talk about it in emails.’”
After Arkane transplanted their real-world confusion into the game itself, the Reployer became a recurring joke referenced in emails and dialogue between TranStar employees. Without missing a beat, Avellone incorporated this into his own work on Prey. “Chris picked up the joke in the dialogue he was writing too,” Bare says. (Keep an ear out for a moment between Mikhaila and January in Morgan’s office to catch a particularly funny Reployer exchange written by Avellone.)
It’s these kinds of exchanges that breathe even more life into a dark story and deep world. And it’s one of the main reasons Avellone was able to add so much to Prey’s already rich narrative. As for Avellone himself, this was a stellar collaboration. “They set clear expectations, gave clear feedback, and were always willing to listen and consider any narrative or design point I brought up,” he says. “Even though I was on contract, I felt very much part of the studio and the process – Arkane made me feel welcome.”
Try Prey for free on 04.27.17. Find out more here: Prey Demo – Play the Opening Hour
Prepare to fight the invasion with these Prey videos and features:
Prey – Guided Tour of Talos I
Prey – Weapons, Gadgets, Gear
Prey – Only Yu Can Save the World
Prey – Powers Guide and Video
Prey – Typhon Guide
Do you have what it takes to work aboard Talos I? Take our quiz, then enter to be eligible to win amazing prizes, including a trip to space camp! Check it out here: TranStarAwaits.com (US ONLY)
