Prey Launch Trailer Arrives A Few Days Early

Prey isn't out until this Friday, but Bethesda wants to make sure that you're ready. To that end, the publisher released Prey's launch trailer a few days ahead of schedule, showing off the game's first-person combat and aliens. Lots and lots of aliens.

The short video lays out Prey's general premise: you are Morgan Yu, a scientist on the Talos I space station. As you report for your first day of work, you notice that something has gone very, very wrong—the station is completely empty, aside from an invading alien force that wants you dead. As it turns out, Yu was "the key subject of an experiment meant to alter humanity forever," and now he's the only man standing between the aliens and the end of the human race.

Prey is a first-person action adventure game developed by Arkane Studios and published by Bethesda Softworks, in which players most navigate a single, continuous space station (no loading screens or levels) while searching for the items they need to defeat the alien horde. Along the way, they'll need to backtrack to older areas in order to unlock new routes Metroid-style. Decisions made during the game will have large and small effects on the game's ending. A trial, The Prey Demo: The Opening Hour is currently available on PC, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4.

While Human Head Studios and 2K published the original Prey in 2006, the new iteration is more of a spiritual successor than a fully-fledged sequel. While both games feature protagonists stuck on alien-infested spacecraft and some thematic similarities, the new Prey's plot and setting have nothing to do with the first game. A direct sequel to the first game was cancelled in 2014.

Prey isn't the only claustrophobic extra-terrestrial adventure coming this month, of course. Alien: Covenant, Ridley Scott's latest entry in the long-running sci-fi/horror franchise, debuts on May 19, 2017, just a couple of weeks after Prey's May 5, 2017 release date. With any luck, they'll both be excellent—although as far as Alien goes, we have some concerns.