After the issues emerged with Dishonored 2 and the unsatisfactory optimization on PC, understand the growing concern for Preyit was not difficult at all. If we add to this uncertainty as a result of the lack of a public demo – just as it did for console versions – it was really impossible to blame anyone who expected a new technical disfigurement that would lead to a new injecting mistrust for conversion operations on PCs, constantly bothered by technical problems.
This low definition framework was also complemented by the far-sighted publisher’s choice of preventing users from knowing before the release what the actual quality of the game was, leaving potential customers in the dark, waiting for opinions and reviews to be able to comfort them before purchase.
Practice now become a rule for the publisher, which in our view should take a step back and revise this new policy. Beyond this, as many of you have already noticed, the PC version of Prey is actually able to make you sleeping serene, so the initial alarm immediately came back when Arkane’s quality of work supplanted every fear. Let’s see how and why.
Preda and predators
When Rafael Colantonio announced that the development team would not be stuck in the same mistakes as Dishonored 2, he said the truth. Though it appeared as the usual façade statement (an idea reinforced by the fact that Prey, on PC, had practically seen nothing), this time Bethesda did a great job.
Although it is not a perfect conversion, it has no bugs and sporadic uncertainties, it still remains above the average. In this sense, the choice of entrusting the most prized CryEngine has proved to be a winning one. The Void Engine had caused some imbalance and the developers, rightly so, opted for a safer and certainly less problematic solution.
Within the options, in addition to the basic settings, it is not possible to bother with the advanced ones. Consider, in fact, that beyond the degree of detail of objects, the quality of shadows and textures, anti-aliasing and anisotropic filter, it is possible to operate only on the screen space occlusion and on screen space reflexes.
How? Deactivate or select the halved or entire resolution, depending on the hardware configuration you have. Although the developers mentioned the addition of the FOV in a forthcoming update, it was legitimate to expect something more from personalization.
The general graphic impact is very good, although it is admitted as polygonal modeling is not exactly state-of-the-art. However, it is partially justified by the artistic style of Prey, which has followed a very precise direction to immediately recognize a world of gameplay that is obviously inspired by classics such as Bioshock and System Shock, although it does not account for the most prominent aspects. In contrast, several Prey elements recall Dishonored, remodeled by virtue of changing the setting.
Black Space
We tried the game on a PC that assembles an i7, 16GB Ram and a 780 OC, achieving singular performance and generally quite comfortable.
For completeness, however, we report unexpected and unexplained drops in the final part of the game, probably due to some problems left unresolved during the conversion. In any case, even with less powerful configurations, you can enjoy the smooth fluidity of the game, while for medium-high and high bandwidth, it’s easy to manage the 4K while maintaining a really good frame rate, which is within a range of 45 not 60 fps. Something more could be done for the audio mix, not always balanced and well-balanced: it is especially noticeable when multiple tracks are projected at the same time, creating an unmatched sound mix.
Excellent response to commands, responsive and far better than the console counterpart. If from the demo on PS4 it was possible to notice how cumbersome some moves were and how much heaviness they had to move around the game areas or using the weapons,
PC experience proved to be much better. Although it is not a FPS that raises its rationale for being but a very different game that leaves great interpretative freedom to the player, in the cabinet version the problem was quite obvious and at times annoying, while here it is not there is not even the shadow of a poorly managed input and of the pachydermic reactivity.
