Day 456: Crazy Twists Pt. 1

I replayed one of my favorite video games over the weekend called 'Prey.' It was on sale for three dollars and I couldn't help myself. Besides the excellent game mechanics, cool characters, and fun gameplay, the best part of 'Prey' is (spoilers) the crazy twists and turns the story takes. I think it has one of the best twists ever written, and it's a real shame that it was the last game the developers, Arkane Studios, ever put out before going out of business. Today I wanted to talk about the twist ending, so, ya know, lots of spoilers.

If you've never played 'Prey' (and don't care if the ending is completely, irrevocably ruined) the premise is as follows:

You play as Morgan Yu, a researcher at TranStar Industries along side your brother, Alex. The very first scene has you wake in your apartment in LA on March 15th, 2032, and immediately get a phone call from Alex about some tests that need to be run. There's a great view out of your apartment window overlooking the Golden Gate Bridge for the player to admire for a while. After a short helicopter ride to the TranStar building, Alex meets you before the tests, and thanks you for joining up with the company. It seems as though you've only been working here for a few weeks.

Alex has you jump right into the tests, which also function as a tutorial for the game, having you do simple tasks like push buttons, retrieve objects, and crouch behind a chair. It's unclear what the purpose of these tests are, but it is obvious that you're somehow failing them. The scientist running the tests, Dr. Bellamy, is frustrated by this, but not for long. When reaches for his coffee cup, which has mysteriously duplicated itself on his desk, it turns into a writhing mass of black tentacles that leaps out and instantly kills him right in front of you. There's a pane of glass between you and Bellamy, but you're not out of danger. Gas floods the room, knocks you unconscious, and the next thing you know you're waking up back in your apartment ... on March 15th, 2032.

After trying to leave the apartment, you'll find that the hallway that led to an elevator the day before is now a dead end. In fact, there's no way to leave at all. What's worse is there's a dead woman right outside your apartment door. With few other options to defend yourself from whatever killed her (and Dr. Bellamy) it seems an obvious choice to pry the heavy wrench she has out of her hands.

Back in the apartment, if you access the computer in Morgan's room, you'll find a bunch of emails from someone named January telling you you need to get out right now. The only question is how? Well, the big window pane overlooking the bridge seems to be the only way out. And you did just pick up that hefty wrench ...

Here in lies the first twist. Smashing the window reveals that the view from your apartment was a lie. It crashes open and leads into the lab where the tests were being run the day before. For whatever reason, someone has been experimenting on you, and you have no idea how long or for what reason. What follows is a horrifying series of events that takes place not in LA, but on the TranStar space station called Talos 1, where an alien lifeform called the Typhon that You and Alex have been studying for years has gotten free. It turns out that you signed up to have your memories erased to experiment with the company's latest tech: typhon-based neuromods. These neuromods write in new memories, a cool piece of technology that has a nasty side effect. Whenever you want to remove a neuromod, you lose any memories you've acquired since having it installed in your mind. Also, you have to stab yourself in the eye to use them, because why not?

This is why you've lost all your memories. Your brother has been consistently wiping them over and over, trapping you in the same day to experiment on you with the Typhon-based neuromods. After the Typhon got free on the station, January, an AI that Morgan programmed to help him escape, swapped out the neuromods that should have reset your memory with blanks, allowing you to free yourself. Now you have a decision to make. Either work with January towards destroying Talos 1 to defeat the Typhon, a mission assigned to you by a past version of Morgan himself, or try to escape. Of course, if you take an escape shuttle off the station, there's no helping the rest of the people aboard, much less everyone else on Earth if those Typhon manage to escape the station.

Throughout the rest of the story there are compounding twists and turns revealed as you explore the station. Morgan has had previous episodes of sanity, leaving behind conflicting messages that guide you in one direction or another, toward salvation or sacrifice. Smaller stories play out as you come across messages left by other members of the crew, your brother, and of course, when you encounter the many forms of Typhon roaming the station. All of them try to kill you (and most of them are terrifying, especially the mimics like the coffee cup that killed Dr. Bellamy) but there are hints of something deeper going on within their alien minds. They keep spreading this weird neural material all over the station called Coral. The main storyline takes you closer and closer to figuring out what its for, as well as to destroying Talos 1 and everything inside. Along the way, you find out that the Typhon are highly intelligent, but lack something called mirror neurons. Those are structures in the brain that allow one to understand and empathize with others. The Typhon are physically incapable of having mercy for other lifeforms, and insatiably consume everything in their path. It seems there is no saving them from themselves.

If you follow the main course toward destroying Talos 1, there's one last huge twist in store. Making the tough decision to sacrifice yourself and everyone aboard the station to save Earth has frees you from another layer of simulation. Yes, all along, you've been trapped within a mental construct of Talos 1. The experiments, the disaster on the station, the waves of Typhon, Alex's betrayal, even your very personality as Morgan Yu is all a lie.

The player was actually a Typhon all along! Dun, dun, DUN!

The Typhon have already made it to Earth. Disaster followed, and the only way to stop them is to turn them against themselves. Alex Yu and TranStar have been working with neuramods to implant mirror neurons into a typhon specimen (YOU!) to give them the empathy necessary to understand human life, and end the invasion. All your choices along the way, whether to run, or to save Earth, who to kill and who to spare, whether to take revenge on Alex, inform whether or not the experiments were successful. In the end, it's implied that the Typhon are able to finally empathize with humanity, and the invasion ends.

It was still as mind blowing the second time as the first, which is something I want to discuss tomorrow in part two of my posts on crazy twists. I'm wanted to set the stage with today's post, and tomorrow I'll talk about what I love to see in a good twist. Maybe I'll include some other examples too, but since 'Prey' is on the mind, I'll focus on what I typed out today. Have a good night!

Thank you for reading,

Benjamin Hawley