Janurary 1998

• AVault Article/Interview

The Adrenaline Vault has posted an excellent interview with a very nice introduction article telling the history of the game from the summer of 1995. This is the first interview with a member of the Prey team in some time now, and I recommend you read it for all the up to date information.  Paul also said in the interview that there will be a playable version of Prey at E3!

• Gamespot Prey Feature

Gamespot has featured Prey as one of the "Quake Killer" games today. There is nothing really new in this preview, but does have many parts:

Introduction

Screenshots

Links

Preview

• Mini Prey Update

Paul Schuytema had this to say about Prey in his most recent .plan update.

Last week, I came to a wonderful Prey catharsis. I finally felt as if I had wrestled in all of the disparate threads of this project into coherent cord. Part of that has to do with the excellent communication skills of the team and part of it has to do with months of me struggling to get the right tools in place for me to track and guide this beast along. It's quite a liberating feeling, really. I've got the big picture, but we're all in our grooves so well that it's very easy for me to "zoom in" and grasp the most minor trials and tribulations of development (like: are Talon's shoulders too wide, how should we implement the new texturing interface, etc.).

• Prey comes out top on 3D Games Poll

Prey beat out Half Life and Duke Nukem Forever in a Gamespot Poll where gamers voted on the game they were looking forward to the most. Prey ended up with over 80% of the vote, which is very impressive.  Duke Nukem Forever came in second with 18%, and Half Life in third with 2%.  The fans are ready for Talon Brave!

• G.O.D not effecting Prey

For those of you wondering if Prey will be wondering if Prey will be distributed by G.O.D. or GT Interactive, Scott Miller has provided an answer.  In an interview by 3D Portal, Scott Miller confirmed that Prey will be retail distributed by GT Interactive.  GT will handle all of the retail advertising, duplicating, and retail sales in stores.

• Prey Development Update

Paul Schuytema has given us another update on the progress of Prey.

Sorry that we've been rather quiet over the last few weeks. We've been spending the time
since the holidays polishing up the pre-Christmas rough edges and plotting our course
from here to the end of the project.

We've just finished testing and documenting the PreyOS. It's a very powerful tool that lets
us go in and work with the fundamental components of the game at run time. It's proving
to be very helpful for our modelers to tweak and adjust the performance of their models
right there in the game. The PreyOS is also giving us our first "final code" taste of the
true extensibility of the Prey engine. I think users out there will rejoice over the total (and
almost ludicrous-thanks to Tom) "tweakability" of the game.

William has been holed up for the last few weeks in another major Preditor abstraction
rewrite. This latest approach will facilitate all the features we'll need in Prey and well
beyond. His main goal was to make things as scaleable as possible over the next few
years of evolving technology. Matt and John are salivating-hounding William at every
moment to get their paws on the new tool.

David started up here on the 5th, and he's already fully up to speed. Yesterday, he had
the opportunity to see the first of his work migrate into the game. Allen and David have
moved into a new office just west of the main Prey "pit." I think they like their new digs,
but of course, everybody had to move their desks one over (since Allen had the choice
window/corner area). Now everyone is in place except Martinus-we have a desk and a PC
waiting for him. He should roll into town any time now.

It's good to hear that the rest of the Prey Team is almost in place. Just one more member to add, the mapper from Germany. Notice how Paul is still staying away from mentioning any details about any of the features in the game :)

• Gamespot Voting

It looks like there is a lot of interest in Prey by gamers out there.  At GameSpot there is a poll of the most anticipated game: Duke Nukem Forever, Half-Life, or Prey.  Duke4 is in the lead right now, with Prey in second.  Make sure to vote for Prey! :)

• Prey Desginers Journal #2

"A Texture Is worth a Thousand Words."  This is the topic of this months Journal on GameCenter.  The article follows the texture artists and level designers on how a texture is thought up and brought into the level.   There is much intersesting information in the article about the lighting, color depth, and texture creation.  The article also includes two new screenshots showing some examples.

These Journals will continue every month, and are written by the Prey team.

• 1998: The Year of Prey?

Will Prey be released this year?  As it stands this moment, the answer is yes. But there is always a chance that the game might be pushed back into 1999.  The idea for Prey was started three years ago about this time, and now the game is far into development. What can we expect this year? KMFDM will start the soundtrack, the Prey team will be completed very soon, expect another big E3 Hype season, and expect 3D Realms to continue to be quiet on details about Prey.

Lets keep preying! :)