Prey, the upcoming sci-fi shooter from French developer Arkane Studios, sure is on many gamer’s wish lists for 2017. After all, this is one of the most promising games in years, and comes from the same studio which put out the great Dishonored 2 in 2016.
So expectations are sky-high for Prey, then. And it’s likely many players may have tried the game already too, since Arkane released a demo for the game in early May. The thing is, this demo is only available for PS4 and Xbox One, with the lack of PC support being a glaring omission here.
“”It’s just a resource assignment thing. We couldn’t do a demo on both the console and on the PC”, said creative director Ralph Colantonio of Arkane Studios to AusGamers (via PC Gamer), adding that “we had to choose”.
Although this doesn’t make much sense taking into account that Colantonio later added that Prey’s “no PC port” and that “we do the game on PC. It’s a PC game”. So if the game is developed on PC, then surely it won’t take that much effort to release a PC demo, then?
Strangely enough, the Arkane Studios’ creative director later added that he sees Steam refunds as a way to demo games, saying that “PC has Steam”, while also adding that “Steam players can just return the game [prior to playing] 2 hours so it’s like a demo already”.
This is truly bizarre too, taking into account that Valve has made it clear in the past that Steam refunds are not to be used in this manner, even if it’s clear that many users have been using it to try out games to this date. But paying full price for a game just to demo it seems like an unnecessary risk, and those who play more than Steam’s allowed 2 hours could end up having to keep a game they might not be satisfied with.
At least Colantonio is assuring people that Prey is unlikely to have the same issues as Dishonored 2 did at launch, telling AusGamers that “we are of course very careful because of what happened with Dishonored 2 . So we wanted to make sure the PC version of Prey is good”, but also admitting that due to the fact the game uses a different engine to their 2016 hit “we might have our own sets of problems”.
Here’s hoping, though, that despite the lack of a PC demo, this still ends up being a good game on the platform (and on consoles too), although this could just turn out to be a solid sci-fi shooter and nothing else. And it’s likely many gamers would be pleased if that turns out to be the case. But we are still expecting the best taking into Arkane Studios past record, so fingers crossed the French studio is able to deliver another Game of the Year-calibre title with Prey this year then.
Note: Prey will be released on May 5, 2017. Available on PS4, Xbox One and PC.