Welcome to the second edition of the Prey Weekly Development Update. Last week, we talked about the history of the game. This week we're talking about some cool stuff going on with the game and here at Human Head. Lots to discuss, so let's get to it:

Head Trips: Prey Press Tour

Next week, a whirlwind press tour is planned for Prey. It's divided into two phases: American press and European Press. I'm headed to Los Angeles and San Francisco next week for the American press, and Tim Gerritsen is flying to Europe for the (surprise) European side of things. Both print and online press will be there - too many to list here (plus I wouldn't want to miss anyone and have them punch me in the neck when they see me in person).

The press will have the chance to see about 30 minutes of single-player action. For this demo, we're focusing on the earlier portions of the game - letting them see how the game ramps up in combat, puzzles, and the player's abilities.

After the single-player portion, we're going to play some MultiPrey deathmatch to give them a feel for that side of the game. We've picked out three maps for them to play - one that focuses on wallwalking, one that focuses on gravity flipping, and one that is all about spherical gravity (fighting on small planetoids). I'm looking forward to their reactions as those elements can be confusing at first, but most of our in-house testers have picked them up quickly.

The multiplayer has really come together - the weapons feel very balanced and nearly all the gameplay from the single player is available in multiplayer: spiritwalking, gravity flip, vehicles, and so forth. The only major gameplay element not in multiplayer is DeathWalk - and that was removed because it was more fun to simply respawn quickly so you can exact revenge upon the chump who killed you.

Also, I'm going to be a guest on Attack of the Show (airing on G4) next week. We'll be discussing Prey and will also probably show off some brief clips of the single player in action. Watch for it!

Deep Inside the Human Head:

This has been an especially busy week here at Human Head. Here's a brief peek into each department's recent tasks:

Programming: The programmers have been cranking on bug fixing, optimization, and working with things such as the installer and localization files (which are essentially a large file containing all the text in the game which is then translated into other languages).

Also, AMD was here helping out with game optimization for a few days this week. Big thanks to them for their help.

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