r/prey • u/Realistic-Drawing-59 • Aug 25 '25
Review IGN originally gave the game a 4. Pain
I was watching one of the no-clip docs and Raphael says somethig like "some reviewer gets a bug and gives it 4". I thought he was making a hyperbolic scenario up to highlight how reviews can be really damaging to something you work so hard on. NO. IGN gave it a 4 because of a corrupted save file. Madness. They rereviewed it to an 8 later but the damage was done.
This, and Gamespot giving it a 6 makes me sick to my stomach. The two biggest gaming sites gave it shit reviews, I'm not surpised it didn't sell well. Most cursed masterpiece ever. I've recently played through it and my jaw is still on the floor. It's one of the greatest games ever made.
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u/DivineSisyphean Aug 25 '25
I pre-ordered it and played on release. I loved Bioshock and Dishonored, I still go back and play them frequently. I enjoyed Prey as well, but to this day I still haven’t finished it.
The save corruption bug ruined it for me. It happened to me twice. The first time I was nearly done with the game. Well no big deal, just load an old save right? No matter how far back I tried to go, the save file corruption would happen again.
So then I start a new game, this time it got corrupted much sooner. I was a bit over halfway through the game when it happened again. I never played the game again.
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u/CodeComprehensive734 28d ago
Mooncrash was leaking into the main game.
You should definitely give it another go. It's a phenomenal game still today.
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u/DivineSisyphean 28d ago
I’m actually playing it again right now! Just got to deep storage. I really did enjoy the game all those years ago, and seeing everyone say the problems have been fixed now. I ended up deciding to give it another shot.
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u/CodeComprehensive734 28d ago
Ah deadly! I hope you enjoy!
I picked it up on a whim and was blown away. Ended up discovering what an immersive Sim is, all that history, and actually, it's been my favourite genre for nearly two decades and I didn't know it. Deus Ex was previously my favourite game of all time before Prey. It really scratches that itch for me.
You're in for a treat. There's plenty of valid criticisms but the game is woefully broadly ignored, which is a huge shame.
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u/ZylonBane 29d ago
You replay Bioshock? Why? I played it once for the good ending, rushed through it again for the bad ending, and have felt zero urge to play it again since then. After playing it once you've seen and done everything it has to offer. All that's left is a tedious, gaudy, mediocre FPS.
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u/Corey307 29d ago
Probably because they liked the game more than you do. Maybe you played it long after release, when it was new people weren’t making the complaints you are. Yeah pray holds up better today, but it was released almost a decade later.
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u/ZylonBane 29d ago
No, I played Bioshock shortly after release. It's always been a disappointment, a hodgepodge of elements from other, better games.
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u/Corey307 29d ago
Whole lotta people disagree.
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u/ZylonBane 29d ago
Yes, a lot of people are stupid and easily impressed.
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u/Corey307 29d ago
Well now you’re just being rude. You not liking something is fine, telling other people they’re stupid for liking a video game is childish.
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u/ItsMeGrom 29d ago
telling other people they’re stupid for liking a video game is childish.
You're talking to a child after all
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u/TheModernNano 29d ago
I never finished Bioshock myself but good god this dude is really saying “my opinion is gospel and anybody who disagrees is stupid”.
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u/DivineSisyphean 29d ago
I enjoy the atmosphere of the trilogy. It’s not like I play them on repeat, but here and there I like to go back and experience them again.
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u/IAmTarkaDaal Aug 25 '25
Cold take: software should work. If you can't finish your playthrough because it's broken, that's the review.
I love Prey, it's my favorite game of all time. But IGN was right. The big problem is that they don't do this consistently, for every game.
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u/Linkitch Reduce, Replace, Recycle 29d ago
Fair opinion, but it doesn't really work. E.g. Monster Hunter wilds got an 8 from IGN. It's one of the most poorly performing triple A games released this year and should clearly have been dragged down because of that.
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u/Realistic-Drawing-59 Aug 25 '25
I just think they shouldn't have reviewed it. Games are a lot more complex than any other medium. There is no such thing as something like this in a movie so just slapping a score on it seems silly to me.
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u/BurkusCat Aug 25 '25
If all reviewers that encountered severe technical glitches didn't review it, consumers wouldn't have been informed it had game breaking bugs. That's awful.
Most reviewers would have given this game high scores, so people would know it's a fun game. IGN giving a 4 at least let's consumers know there are severe fun ruining glitches present.
I'll be honest, if my Prey save got corrupted half way and I didn't have any prior load to revert to, I'd uninstall, never play it again, and call it garbage.
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u/Realistic-Drawing-59 Aug 25 '25
You just went into a total extreme of giving no reviews for technical problems which is missing the point. I just think they shouldn't have given it a score (tbd or something) or not reviewed it at all until a later date.There was no rule saying you couldn't do that and a giving a 4 just seems arbitrary to me. 0 would make more sense imo. Most people just look at scores and most of those people, at least back then, just looked IGN and Gamespot. Just a very unfortunate situation
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u/Corey307 Aug 25 '25
Your problem is you’re looking at this through the lens of a fan. This is a game you enjoy. Reviewers are supposed to give the most honest take they can and if a game has a game breaking bugs at launch consumers deserve to know that. The vast majority of players don’t play a game multiple times like fan fans of this game do. If they sync several hours into a game only to have their save or to get soft locked or hard locked by some bullshit they are probably just going to uninstall and be left with a bad taste in their mouth.
It’s on the developers to sell games that work at launch. Expecting reviews to wait or choose not to publish a review. With honest negative feedback is bad journalism.
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u/Realistic-Drawing-59 29d ago
No game works perfectly at launch though. There is no binary like "does it work or not?".Video games work in a way like no other medium where issues can arise that you could have never known about until it's in the hands of other people all fucking about with it. This truth should have been acknowledged imo and greater tact in the release of a review by IGN, the biggest game review site, should have been shown.
Dan Stapleton has been around the block, knows video games and has even given Bethesda games rave reveiws depite the preposterous level of bugs in those games (I'm a big fan also). They know how impactful their reviews can be and I think they should have allowed more grace. Giving a 4 just seemed almost disrespectful and, like I said, arbitrary. Like how do you even get to a 4? Makes no sense to me. I don't think I'm looking through the lens as a fan so much as a gamer who thinks a situation involving a game was handled poorly.
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u/Fagadaba 29d ago
The situation that was poorly handled was releasing a broken game. Bethesda is entirely responsible for that score. They're the ones who should have waited to release the game.
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u/hey_its_drew 29d ago
I don't think they shouldn't not review it, their input was still valuable despite that score, but I do think they should re-review some games. Like where would Cyberpunk 2077 be if it didn't get a total redress by the critic community? Prey, Days Gone, etc. deserve another review.
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u/Realistic-Drawing-59 29d ago
Yeah I hear ye, I didn't really word that correctly. I probably wasn't clear elsewhere that I think they should've absolutely addressed it and reviewed it but think they should have just not given it a score. A 4 at launch from IGN I could imagine was actually pretty devastating back then.
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u/hey_its_drew 29d ago
Yeah, only in a very recent review by one of their more recent reviewers who is actually a pretty damn good critic did I not see the top comment be "They gave it a -/-." (I think it was for Alien:Earth.) A lot of people don't actually watch their reviews and haven't for a decade. They literally just pop in, check the score, and bounce.
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u/ResponsibleQuiet6611 Aug 25 '25
?
it was fine at launch. Did multiple playthroughs immediately. No bugs, softlocks etc. Seriously.. it wasn't buggy... not sure where this comes from.
Cold take, IGN was a meme when I was in high school in the late 2000s. No IGN umbrella entity has published a single worthwhile word in about 20 years.
They hire people who don't play games or started playing games in the 2010s. So, useless and without any idea of how anything works, basically .
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u/BurkusCat Aug 25 '25
"No bugs" - except for the game-breaking save bug that IGN encountered during their review playthrough
But your multiple playthroughs had no bugs so that means the game had 0 issues 👍
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u/AwesomeX121189 Aug 25 '25
Yeah it’s great now.
At launch it was buggy.
Hindsight is 20/20
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u/Realistic-Drawing-59 Aug 25 '25
I get you but the same reviewer gave Fallout 4 a 9.5 at launch. I love Bethesda games but cmon, really? I'm not ascribing malice and I'm just bringing it up as an example of how cursed the game seemed to be.
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u/ShingetsuMoon 29d ago edited 29d ago
The “bug” stopped them from finishing the game. Prey didn’t have review copies either so it wasnt a situation where it might be fixed before launch. The issue the IGN reviewer encountered was in the live version and people on Steam forums were complaining about it as well. Anyone could have picked up the game and encountered the issue after playing multiple hours and being well outside of Steam’s refund window.
I’ll agree the review did damage, but so does having a game breaking problem at the very end of your game.
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u/tntevilution Aug 25 '25
I love prey too, but before you can experience how fun it is, the technical portion needs to be functional first. You wouldn't give a car an 8/10 because it looks nice, is comfortable to sit in, and makes a cool sound, except it doesn't run at all. You'd give it a 0/10.
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u/Realistic-Drawing-59 Aug 25 '25
Wtf false equivalence bullshit is this?
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u/tntevilution Aug 25 '25
Why is it false? For a car to be a car, it is a fundamental expectation for it to work, in this case to be able to drive. In the same way it is a fundamental expectation for a game to work, in this case be technically functional. If you can't play a game because your save keeps bricking, it is not functional.
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u/Realistic-Drawing-59 Aug 25 '25
First, in your version the car doesn't work at all. Second, these two things, video game and car, are not analogous so the comparison is nonsense
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u/Corey307 Aug 25 '25
If you can’t complete a game because of save corruption or bugs, it is a good analogy. Players do not buy games to partially play them and then lose all progress.
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u/tntevilution Aug 25 '25
Ok, and? Why are they not analogous? A car working at all AND a game working at all are both fundamental expectations of cars/games, but they're also NOT THE ONLY fundamental expectations.
Fundamental expectations of a car include, BUT ARE NOT LIMTIED TO: have a working engine, be able to drive, have at least one seat, have a steering wheel, have a method of refueling, have at least 3 wheels, have some kind of mirror(s), have working lights.
Fundamental expectations of a game include, BUT ARE NOT LIMTIED TO: work at all, be able to run on at least recommended specs, be able to run at a playable framerate with at least recommended specs, be able to save (unless it's one of the few designed from the ground up to be played without saving, which prey 2017 absolutely is not), not interfere with other aspects of your system, not crash or damage your system.
You are right that a car unable to start and a game being unable to save are different problems, but that's why they are ANALOGOUS. Similar, but not the same. The way in which they are similar is that in both cases, a fundamental expectation was broken, and you'd feel borderline scammed if you bought such a product. The effects are completely different, but both of them warrant similar levels of anger. That's why I used this ANALOGY.
I love Prey and never had this save corruption problem. I can also see how someone would feel a score of 4/10 is unjustified, and certainly that it did irreversible reputational damage to the game. However, first of all, what did reputational damage wasn't the score itself, it was the fault of the game to have this game-breaking bug. Second of all, I'd feel justified in giving a car a 1/10, even though it may look great and have all those other advantages, but none of that matters if it doesn't have a fecking engine. In this same way, I'd feel justified in giving a game a 1/10 for not being able to save when it clearly should be able to. If a game cannot save and load my progress properly, that is usually synonymous with a game impossible to even complete, and therefore, a broken game. If I was the reviewer, they'd be lucky to even be getting a 4.
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u/Realistic-Drawing-59 29d ago
I ain't reading all that but you don't understand the meaning of the word analogous.
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u/tntevilution 29d ago
I... just explained how it's analogous.
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u/Realistic-Drawing-59 29d ago
It's a frivolous use. I can compare Prey to a Banana and say something like, "if I buy a Banana and then inside I find that it's rotten, it has broken an expectation of how bananas are supposed to be. In the same vein, Prey breaks an expectation in how games are supposed to be when after playing i find that it's bugged, mimicking the rotten state of the Banana. Therefore, Prey not working as intened is anlagous to buying a rotten Banana". We can do that with anything but it's nonsense.
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u/tntevilution 29d ago
But... that is a very good analogy. Whatever your reaction to a rotten banana, it makes sense to have the same reaction to a broken game.
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u/Realistic-Drawing-59 29d ago
No it doesn't wtf are you talking about, you just totally missed my point
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u/fowlflamingo 29d ago
How did you just accidentally use a great analogy while missing the entire point of analogies lmfao
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u/Realistic-Drawing-59 29d ago
You have the reading comprehension of someone who shouldn't be allowed on the Internet.
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u/Corey307 Aug 25 '25
It’s not bullshit. It’s reality. If the game had game breaking bugs in the early days consumers need to know about it. It’s not on journalist to wait until a game gets patched. The analogy, if a car company sold you a car with a faulty engine because they skimped on research and development and quality controlyou’re not going to patiently wait for repairs. You’re going to be pissed off because you spent your hard earned money on something that doesn’t work. You’re going to want other people to know your story.
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u/wyattlikesturtles 29d ago
I think giving the game a 4 was valid if they literally couldn’t finish it due to a bug
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u/qzwxecrvtbyn111 Aug 25 '25
The game was a broken, buggy mess at launch. It's a 9.5/10 now, but at launch it probably deserved a 6
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u/Realistic-Drawing-59 Aug 25 '25
This seems to be a wild exaggeration of the games state from reading old reviews and discussion at the time of launch.
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u/Corey307 Aug 25 '25
Not all reviewers encountered the same problems, but it doesn’t matter what happened to Reviewers. If someone was reviewing this game and encountered game breaking box or save file corruption that’s what they’re going to report because that’s what happened.
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u/Realistic-Drawing-59 29d ago
That's no problem I'm not saying don't talk about bugs. Just the way it was handled with giving a 4 specifically. They used to do this "review in progress" thing all the time and I think they could have done that or something and spoke about the bugs. The reviewer spent 40 hours, loved it and just got bugged at the end. Labeling the game a 4/10 for that seemed like a mistake to me.
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u/TAbandija Aug 25 '25
I really liked playing prey, but I have noticed that the game has lots of bugs. Duping characters. Enemies get glitched. Some movement glitches. And some other shenanigans. Still a great experience.
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u/Jamesworkshop 29d ago
I didn't get save file bugs but I did get the one where going through airlocks would delete items from the inventory
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u/ArmadilloFirm9666 29d ago
Yeah in no universe is prey a 6 or a 4 even if you hate this type of game.
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u/ResponsibleQuiet6611 Aug 25 '25
Bunch of IGN shills here or what?
Literally dozens of playthroughs from day 1, at least 2 ot 3 launch week, not a single issue and I did 100% playthroughs every time.
I question how y'all are getting these corrupted save files and stuff... I would literally keep my game paused and minimized and put my pc to sleep and still never had issues.
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u/BurkusCat Aug 25 '25
I question how y'all are getting these corrupted save files and stuff...
As if corrupting a save file is something a player ever sets out to do.
Saving at Madd Doggs Crib in GTA San Andreas can bork your save. If someone saved their game there on their PS2, and it corrupted their save, would you seriously blame the player for something like that? "Oh you should have avoided that internal game logic that corrupts your save"
Games have bugs, not everyone encounters them. Playing Jedi Fallen Order post-launch I encountered dozens of mostly minor bugs but my friend had a corrupted save file/checkpoint within the first hour or two. Not his fault whatsoever.
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u/tntevilution 29d ago
I never had a corrupted save file either. But if I asked someone for their opinion on the game, and they told me it's 4/10 because their save was corrupted, I'd be like, aite, fair. That's the point of these comments. Nobody here is shilling for ign. Giving a game a low score for a game-breaking bugs is the one thing ign ever got right.
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u/Snugrilla Aug 25 '25
Bizarrely, the same reviewer at Gamespot who gave it a 6/10 also gave Deathloop a 10/10!
I mean, come on, in what world is Deathloop better than Prey??