Most of the abilities themselves don’t feel like much of anything special, as things like enhanced strength, repair skill, the ability to move objects or kill with your mind, and even resurrect the dead to fight for you have all appeared in plenty of games lately. That, combined with being rewarded for picking up literally any piece of useful gear or actual trash thanks to a cartoonish recycling system that lets you turn even old banana peels into raw materials for manufacturing weapons and upgrades, made me eager to turn over every metaphorical rock on Talos. I enjoyed uncovering how that history unfolded in bits and pieces gleaned from news articles and tidbits on the brief loading screens. It’s an impressively fleshed-out universe, built around an alternate history of the space race that somehow led to an elaborate orbital station, complete with artificial gravity, where touchscreen computers exist side by side with film projectors and rotary telephones. There’s so much storytelling treasure to uncover here, ranging from squabbles among co-workers to more personal notes like a scrapped proposal speech, Dungeons & Dragons character sheets, and even hilariously terrible in-universe science-fiction novel snippets.

Between terminals containing all sorts of emails, well-acted audio logs, and thoughtful environmental storytelling, developer Arkane has done a fantastic job of making this bizarre place feel lived-in long before I ever met another living human. “The most interesting stories were the smaller ones I came across, those of the people who lived on Talos before, during, and after it was attacked by aliens.

Prey 2017 imdb