I think one thing that wasn't discussed was that humans rarely think big picture, its simply not something we do unless we have the time or force it. So when you hear someone in need, you help them, with all that you can. You are doomed but that doesn't mean others need to, I think most didn't consider the earth and the dangers so it was not even a question of the few versus the many. But rather how perceptive we are about our own behavior before acting. Just like the Typhoon is without empathy, humanity is barely without tunnel-vision. At least in that regard, human is good, but a little dumb.
I have not played Prey, but the game seems to hold you (the player) accountable for the actions of the main character. Is it right for us, the player, a different person, to be held accountable for the actions of someone of the same body, but different mind? It would make more sense to put the player in a position where they could commit these horrible crimes freely, then make them answer for it, like putting them in Skyrim, then holding them accountable for the people they stole from, the people they killed, and potentially re-building dangerous organizations like the brotherhood or the Thieves guild. How could I feel bad for killing people when I didn’t kill them, my “previous” self, someone who I don’t recognize or even know did.
I wish I could say I knew what was true about me, that I could be confident saying I am who I am and won't falter from that stand point. But I can't, I cant say for sure if I could be the person I claim to be on that test. But what I do know is true about myself is this. I would gladly sacrifice myself for others. That if given the chance...i would be the person who bites the bullet so others wouldn't, even if I feel they are not someone you would think would be worth it.
So much subtext here I didn't even realise. The core ethic that Prey values and features is empathy. All of the choices you make aren't really good or evil, but empathetic vs apathetic, and I think there's a truth to that. We can't always be good, but we can try to be empathetic.
Their was this poem I saw once that works well with this: “Youth Eternal and Beauty Undying are the Poisons that welcome sin And as all things do, sin comes full circle Thus lies the reason wherein’ That in truth we are inherently evil Yet evil is not of our name “What is Good and what is Bad?” They ask And so, what right have they to blame? In the Purest sense and to a discerning eye Evil is true good “Then what is Evil?” it is naught Oh my beautiful Monarch their is only Light and Dark”
To expand on that further, it's definitely a question of who you're empathetic to. Are you empathetic to the scientists who are testing such horrible atrocities on real actual human beings, or are you empathetic to the rapists, murderers and pedophiles the scientists are testing on? It was hard for me to not let that man get killed by the mimic in the test chamber but only because I personally benefited by letting him live and letting him open the chamber that I set him free and fought the voltaic phantom on the other side of the chamber...
Reminds me of Kreia's words from KOTOR 2. "Apathy is death; worse than death, for even the dead fertilize the soil in which they are buried" (paraphrased)
Interesting study was done about this phenomenon of "spoiling stories" a few years ago. As it turns out people enjoy a story that has been spoiled more than one that hasn't (specifically those which have a mystery within it's plot). The study was done numerous times with many groups of people over a period of a few years and with each test group they found similar, if not, the same result every time. Look up SuperEyepatchWolf's video on the subject, it is very informative on the subject.
Agreed, I have never played this game but knew about the 'choose your ending' end, and the 'who couldn't see this coming' twist. But now I want to play this game so I can see what puzzles a 'minimal-hacking' and 'minimal-killing' run will bring.
Joel, Anecdotal, I know, but something I think this is something we have all indeed shared at some point: How many people have re-watched an old show with a really good plot, especially if it involves mystery, and enjoyed being able to see the subtle clues that you didn't know to look for the first time through?
i don't think the main purpose of the trolley problem is to gauge whether someone prioritizes the good of the many vs the good of the few, but rather the nature of complicity in the death of a person as opposed to a bystander passively allowing people to die
That is the correct intention of the question but it's poorly constructed. You've been given the choice to change tracks with a conviently placed lever right next to you. This puts you in a position where you can't be not choosing. choosing not to react is choosing to kill five people. you had nothing to lose to save them and yet you chose their death for some reason. You can stay and watch or leave or run away but the fact of the matter is you chose one of two options. Kill one to save five or let five get killed. But it doesn't change the fact that someone get's killed and you're responsible for the outcome. It might feel like not reacting keeps your hands clean because you haven't sacrificed that person. But in actuality you'd be sacrificing the five to keep your mind at ease. Of course what happens if you'd been put in that situation for real is anyone's guess but that doesn't change the fact that you've chosen the death of _someone_. But it raises another interesting question which to be honest interests me a lot more. So we know you'd have chosen either way but to what extent would or should you be accountable? I mean on the one hand you pull the lever and you're by definition a murderer but on the other hand you chose the death of the five as the only one in the position to do so. Is murder in that instance still ethically or morally reprehensible? Can you really be judged if put in a dillema in the first place or are you freed from ethical judgment no matter what you choose? How is choosing the passive bystander solution a way out? Are the lives of the many really more valuable than a single one? How is that even quantifiable? If it's not then why would sacrificing the few for the many count as a good thing? Am I even murdering anyone if I never intended for any of this to happen? Would it change anything if either option had contined a loved one? if so then would I be the bad guy if I chose the loved one no matter his position or if I ignored him and threw the weight of our emotional bond right out the window? WHAT IS LIFE??? (T_T)
since you know you are being tested, the correct answer is then to make the tester believe there has been a failure in the machinery in the hope they cancel the test to repair the fault and try again.
Yeah I prefer the pushing of the fat guy from the bridge onto the track version.It removes the conviently places lever and makes the murder of the one a bit more direct.
To me Dan makes you think about the point, "either way death". So then I feel like doing nothing, because IMO there's nothing I CAN do. Here's an ironic teaching then: "Whoever destroys a soul, it is considered as if he destroyed an entire world. And whoever saves a life, it is considered as if he saved an entire world."
There was something similar in Deus Ex: Human Revolution's ending that a lot of people miss, and I admit I didn't realize it until days after I finished it. It had a similar multiple-choice ending that got a lot of flack as lazy and disappointing. But the ending itself wasn't what mattered. It was that question. The entire game served to demonstrate the potential benefits and pitfalls of cybernetic augmentation and transhumanism in general, something that many believe we could start seeing in a few decades. The story has already ended by the time you get to choose an "ending". The game is saying "So that's the problem we're facing, what do you do about it?"
Oh god Deus Ex: human revolution. When I learned that the people were mindcrushed into zombies, I resolved to save everyone. Nonlethal takedowns. Every. Single. Enemy. It took five times as long as it needed to, but I made it, not a single innocent harmed. Then I got to the end... It floored me. I had my choice of which faction I wanted to crucify as a scapegoat... or I could bury us all in concrete and leave the world without an answer. I had to put down the controller and think that over for literally half an hour, and for every scenario, I thought of ways it could go wrong. Innocents who would die. Greed or corruption or panic or ignorance, pointing the finger at ANYONE would have only made the problem worse. So I did what I had to do. After sparing the lives of so many people on the way down, I buried the truth on the ocean floor. God would sort us out, and the world would move on.
Strat-Edgy Productions Depending on how far through it you are it may be worth finishing. I know it can be hard to see someone else do the same thing right before you do it (and UA-cam comments don't help) but in an intellectual conversation more voices are never bad and more often than not two people with the same topic, examples, and info can create wildly different final experiences due to wildly different creative processes. ESPECIALLY when it comes to opinion pieces, which I would say this partly is considering how abstract this is. So ultimately, Extra Credits made the same video as you doesn't mean you have to scrap your own video and you can even build it too compliment theirs.
Being a fan of your work, I'd certainly watch your take on Prey as well. It's a game that really flew under peoples radars but had a lot of good stuff to it, especially compared to most triple-A games nowadays.
Still think it was pretty underrated. One of the very few games this year i had trouble putting down the night i started playing it. If it just had another name.
Prey was excellent. So sad more people didn't play it. They even released a demo, which is what drew me in. Prey is the first game that satisfied my Bioshock cravings in a while...played the first Dishonored but, while it was cool, didn't love it.
I often play with an achievement-hunting focus as well, and I love criticizing myself as I do so. I have to say that Prey is one of the few games where, after a while, I felt truly attached to the choices *I* wanted to make, rather than just trying to get as many achievements as possible in one run. --Belinda
I just play through once without knowing the trophies and then go through it again to try to get as many as i can. I must've played through Prey about 10 times to get all trophies
I looked up a guide on youtube and just followed that. If i remember correctly, you need to keep the cook alive and he'll eventually give you access to 4 people that you can't get to any other way
Metal Monkey, the cook isn't the whole who grants you access to those people. That said, the "find everyone" achievement doesn't require you to actually find "everyone." It requires you to find everyone you physically can in the course of one playthrough.
*Was completely uninterested in prey so ignored the spoiler warning* *Wants to play a spoiler-free version of prey now that I know what the spoiler is*
there are some flaws that bother me, in the case for a vacation, i would try something new, but in case of combat, i would only try something new if i had to, but the bigger one is the accept death sentence or not, if i feel guilty over my actions, i would say yes, but in the game, you dont remember doing those things, you dont feel guilty, why would you accept a death sentence?
It is also practically forced into your skull that over the course of uncountable neuromod treatments Morgan has undergone significant personality changes AND doesn't even remember doing anything since all pre-neuromod information was drilled out of their brain... so to hold what is essentially a completely different person accountable for those crimes is a bit stupid...
Well if we go with the completely different person perspective caused by brain wipe hasn't the evil Morgan already been executed making this point rather...mot.
Black Steel Kita well there's also that other question of identity which isn't really touched on here but is the much more obvious theme throughout the game. The question of what defines you, and what that definition means for the boundaries of what is or is not you. That's an interesting, if for many people more simple, question on its own. And it does a wonderful job of masking these deeper themes.
my issue is that its a game, that does not make anything the video said wrong, but it means we have be pre-programmed by countless other games about the formula Why did you mostly only shoot and hack? because that is how it worked for many other games, why did you try to save people? because in many other games that is the goal, why did you try to find a way to save yourself AND destroy the aliens? because there is always that 'have your cake and eat it too' solution in other games
Yeah! You're not the person who murdered these people, you have no responsibility. Unless you specifically ordered to have your memories removed and personality altered to avoid punishment. At which point... wait, you're still not whoever ordered to murder those people. You can't be held responsible... Just because you're inhabiting the body of a murderer doesn't mean you can be punished! Although if it's a physical defect in that body's brain that caused the murders, that makes a little more sense, I guess. But man, minority report. Can't punish 'em before they even do the thing.
That final post-credit scene puts the entire game into a whole new perspective, and good god do I love this game for it. Arkane have proven themselves time and time again of being magnificent developers, and I honestly consider Prey to be the best game they've ever made to date: it might even be their magnum opus.
Really nice job paralleling the test questions to the gameplay of Prey. I normally would have felt frustrated about a "It was actually all VR" ending, but I think they pulled it off well. Where you kind of lose me is in the whole "Is humanity worth saving?" deal. I feel like this is a boring dartboard justification for every anime villain, usually someone of non-human species judging them. I think this is really mostly just the result of writers who have gotten their kicks from plumbing the depths of horribleness and shock value. I really cannot imagine having a large team of bright, enthusiastic scientists who are so willing to ravage people to death just for the purpose of an experiment while acting with total detachment - it is comically absurd. Scientists have certainly done terrible things, like design the atom bomb - but usually did so with a form of detachment, like hitting buttons on a computer screen. As large-scale events, there's certainly a wealth of horrific occurrences across history that seem to suggest humans like being evil, but any kind of close focus tends to show far more nuance than we can give in one sentence. There's just not bodies of people who wake up and say "Man, I would love to burn babies alive today." I'd remind viewers that news media of the 2000s is very fast to focus on the most negative elements of society, and that the fiction that consumes so much of your life almost always needs a villain and dark conflicts leading to deaths and pain. It's very easy for this surrounding of negative imagery to paint a supremely negative view of humanity; but to people who don't spend the majority of their time in these worlds, it isn't even a balanced, nuanced decision. It's the difference between petting a dog and kicking it.
The best part is that they seed in the suspicions about what's going on earlier on. As soon as I found the audio log about "Hey, should we inject someone's neurons into the typhon, and see if it develops empathy?" and I realized that I, as the protagonist never spoke a word the whole time...I had suspicions. Then the flashback happened and I heard "You're not what they say you are" and Immediately was like "Oh. There's a significant chance that I'm actually a typhon with Morgan Yu's brains. I wonder how this will play out." And when it didn't show up, I was like "...Huh...I wonder. They said in the recording that they'd have to simulate memories to test the typhon..."...And then the post-credits scene happens and I went "Hah, I had a feeling."
Plus what you did in the game is memories of things that actually happened, so the ending is basically a ju.p forward in time to see how things played out after. It's a nice way to do the simulation plot that still gives weight to your actions.
The fact that you can ask yourself these questions, that you can reflect on them, tells me others can be like you, that people can manifest empathy and choose to hope for a better future. I hope that is allowed to carry on and becomes our dominant ideology.
The answers are changed by context. "What if the Typhon comes with the survivors?" There's a thing called quarantine, we do it to astronauts coming back from space, even Apollo 13. If it's not found during quarantine, it'd happen eventually anyway. And it's not like The Thing, which is far more patient, and it's shape shifting almost perfect. The Mimics would jump at people before even an hour had passed. "Why did you make the Mimic kill the prisoner. The message could've lied." Because if it's true, I'd rather not have him walk around the station. His dialogue made it uncertain if the crimes are real or made up. If there was an option to put him in permanent lockup, I would've done so. But instead I must hope he doesn't get out in any way. And it's not out of the realms of possibility that he's guilty. There's plenty of people who do heinous crimes. It'd be more work to transfer an innocent man than a guilty one. "Why didn't you sacrifice yourself when you said you would rather kill one than many?" Because I have alien space magic, imagine the utility we could find with it. What if we did it with animals instead of people? We could even clone animals, no consciousness or suffering to worry about, just alien space magic. Besides, what about the future? There WILL be a threat in the future, if not the Typhon, someone else. Having more tools will help, rather than hoping some other solution comes along, and even then, these solutions are unlikely to be mutually exclusive. The best weapon against the Typhon, is the alien space magic.
Ah it's the old paradox. I had zero interest in Prey so I gladly watched this thinking "Eh, I'll never play it." But that sounds amazing and now I'm gutted I won't get to be caught by surprise on it... but then I NEVER would have played it had I not been told about it so... ah oh well. I'll probably just play it several times and see what happens instead >D But this has just gone WAY up in my list of games I need to play.
7:08 Never thought about this, the idea of someone or something totally not seeing kiling as a big deal, not simply not empathizing but not understanding and valuing at all. This is pure nihilism. We would be screwed if people didn't have a trace of empathy, people scoff it, say it you can't feel others feeling, but be thankful that your brain literally makes you feel pain for others, it's what impedes a horror-like bloodbath of reality.
This might be my favourite episode of EC up to date, because of the topic (I love Prey despite it shortcomings) but also, if not mainly because of that beautiful closure. Makes me wonder, if I'll ever have a thought, on my own, as clear and genuine as That.
Awesome job in this video guys. Prey is my favorite game of all time. I never thought of Prey like that. Thanks of opening my eyes. It really helps see the game in a new and much more interesting light. Thanks so much and don't stop what you guys are doing. You all are awesome and amazing. (PS your history channel is also really awesome.)
More because you can't make aliens permanently friendly to you. Humans and human-programmed tech are friendly to you by default, and you won't like feeling of loneliness, from being last human-like creature on space station, with nothing to support you.
I have to massively thank you guys for this video. I recently finished Prey a couple of weeks ago and it keeps coming back to me, this video's helping me process what it is about the game that I love. It felt like a really underrated title, I'm glad I made time for it.
This has been the most mind opening episode of extra credits, well done, I have literal goosebumps. I'm going to go sit in a corner and re-evaluate human kind.
Frankly, a game is a very bad way to find out wether or not your basic desposition towards certain things is true or not. If you said that you like to try new things but still only fell back on guns and hacking most of the times, that doesn't mean that your answer was a lie or anything. It simply means that in this context you didn't prefer to try a new thing. But that doesn't mean that you wouldn't prefer new things in other contexts! The same is true for all the other stuff. In the end, it still is just a game and your behaviour in a game can and will be drastically different compared to your behaviour in everyday life.
I agree with you that you will not always treat a game the same as you would real life, but pray allows a much closer representation of what you would do then a pen and paper test. And to a degree if you try to act like your choices are real it can show a lot about you.
this video made me pause at the intro, buy prey, drop 40 hours into exploring and finishing the game, and come back to watch the rest. 100% worth it. Magnificent. :D
There's just one problem with the issue of "one of those shape-shifting aliens could be on the shuttle you might use to evacuate the people from the station, and by helping those people you put everyone back on earth at risk". Why? Your character has a device called a psychoscope. One of the upgrades you can get for it allows you to see if an object is, in fact, a shape-shifting alien before it can attack. Even if there weren't enough time to check before leaving because the entire station was about to blow up, you could scan everything in the shuttle after the fact while you were drifting in space, and if it turned out one of those things was hiding on board, you could deal with it then. Best case scenario? You trap it with the GLOO cannon and kill it. Worst case scenario? It overruns the shuttle and you have to reset the course to send the shuttle away from earth & maybe put out a warning message that the shuttle should be avoided and destroyed, before you drift about dead in space. Either way, you at least tried to save everyone, without stupidly ignoring the risk of those monsters reaching earth.
Zaruian Perhaps. But if an argument needs to be re-explained, at what point does self-reflection occur? The fact that many players appear to have not liked the ending seems to indicate that either the argument was uncompelling or poorly put forward.
A question could make a clear point and still force examination. Well, no it can't, you can't force someone to look closer at what they are doing and analyze their choices. Your question is a good counter to your own rebuttal however as when I tried to make an example I hit a wall and had to examine it further.
I think thats part of the point. People tend to respond to a lot of situations in a half-assed way because they fail to analyse the situation beforehand. And then shit happens.
Prey was one of the few video games in the past few years that actually made me sit back and THINK about what just happened and what I'd been doing the whole time. In the beginning, I answered the questions in the test; they were so quick, I felt like I'd seen them a thousand times before and I knew what my answers were. Then, as I played, I had almost forgotten about them. It was just about 3/4 of the way through where I had to choose whether to destroy the passenger shuttle going to Earth or let it continue (it's a quest line) where I realized the game had literally had me playing through the questions from the beginning of the game. I had to take a short break at that point and recall the events that corresponded with the opening quiz. I then realized that, as sure as I was with my answers, I had not been playing the game the way I had answered the questions. It was truly insightful, and no other game has given me a kind of introspective look in such a genuine way before. Prey was by far one of my favorite games of the past 5 years
"Which is more important: The good of the few, or the good of the many?" is a poor interpretation of the original question in the game here being; "A runaway train is bearing down on five people who are tied to the track. You can cause the train to switch tracks, but there is one person tied to the second track." In the original question there is blame association and personal creed/belief involved. On one hand the question omits who's responsible for the situation, but in taking action you choose to bare responsibility for the death of the single person. On the other hand you may believe in the creed that; "Doing nothing is evil enough." This weighs the individual's value of responsibility vs belief; judging vs feeling balance. The generalization you used here has nothing to do with that aspect of persona.
I must admit. Among the videos I browse through nearly weekly to listen to during gaming sessions I commonly pick from this channel. Your extra credit history is among my favorites. Your other videos have also brought up some spirited discussion in my family about human nature. But in my solemn moments when I have nothing but my own thoughts I rarely observe anything from this channel to entice my muses. Till now. I will happily say this is among my favorite thought provoking videos as to date and while I may not be a smart man I can defiantly understand this subject. Thank you for the amazing video!
if you condemn humanity for having empathy but not using it, but not a species with no empathy, that is basically saying that empathy is not universal, but your values on it are. That means that empathy is purely subjective and doesn't necessarily have a universal value. so you should not have the bias thought that "empathy is good". So even if humans suppress their empathy and are "evil", who cares? Why is that worse than having no empathy at all? you are a human, so you would rather have humanity live while the alien dies, and that is just as good a reason as any.
I did listen to you.... spent a 2 weeks and i finished the game....... MAN YOU WERE SOOOOOO RIGHT!!!! THIS GAME IS EPIC. The final scene was mindblowing! THX for not spoiling it to me.
I like to try new things when it's comfortable and safe to do so. I like to try new fooods, but when a bear is running at me I'm not going to go "ahhh the gun is too played out, I'm going to try something new and stop it with a flashlight instead!"
I always think of the entire "good of few good of many" thing as rather stupid. In the test you assume absolute certainty, therefore it can (and should) be reduced to an equation. IRL this is obviously not as simple, but that doesn`t change the correct answer to the test. I therefore see no real "realization". Just the game (or any medium where this comes up) telling you, hey RL is more complex than me, or a test, or any simulation. Which imo is pretty dumb.
Jim Kirk i think the underlying problem with this question is morality. If everything is down to a percentage what happens when you are the lesser and more expendable percentage. It's easy to say that others are easily expendable when it's your choice. but what about when your the one chosen to be sacrificed. There is something inherently wrong feeling to us when our hopes and dreams are suddenly tossed aside becuase we are the expendable one. Thats I think what this question is really tryung to get at.
In the real world, the equation must account for these probabilities. Rather than "Would you sacrifice a few to save the many?" a more realistic question is "Would you risk the many to save a few?" In Prey, sending survivors home saves them, but risks all of humanity. Do you take a chance to try to save everyone, or do you sacrifice some for the certainty (or vastly increased chance) of saving most?
We take certain hypotheticals for granted as being true, for example you should save a child over an adult if you can only save one; we try to figure out heuristics to figure out the most probable morally right answer for one reason, in AI research, autonomous cars try to make the best decision.
Jim Kirk He misunderstood the question, it's really a question comparing Utilitarianism to Denotological Ethics. While a utilitarian (John Stuart Mill) would always put the good of the many over the good of the few, he would also weigh off age, value to the world, moral judgement of the person, and many other factors to determine the moral decision. If all he knew was that 5 people would die if he did nothing, but 1 person would die if he switched the tracks then he would obviously save the 5 people. But if the 5 people were all 90 year olds with stage 3 brain cancer and the other person was a healthy, smart, successful 25 year old, then he would let the train kill the 5 people. Meanwhile a Denotologist (Immanuel Kant) would say that you should make the decision based on what you think is always wrong and what is always right. For example, let's say you think murder is immoral, if you were to switch the train tracks, then you just sentenced a man to death, which is murder and an immoral act so you shouldn't do this. While this might seem like extremely simple thinking at first glance, the idea is that if you lead by example and other people also do the same, then instead everyone being a bunch of random strangers always conflicting with each other on what they think is the good for the most possible people, everyone will be moral agents that will only do what is morally permissible. It's like a constitution, a set of standards beyond reproach, only instead of laws affecting a nation it's a moral code affecting an individual.
I saw errant signal's episode on prey a week ago, and I'm loving the take you put on the game. I have a much fuller understanding of it after seeing both videos, which is nice, after having blatantly ignored the spoiler warning at the start of each one.
I lit a guy on fire and ate my dead dog raw because the guy who I set on fire was the cook and he died... Then because I ate my dog raw, I went on a psychopathic rampage with my cybernetically enhanced arms and murdered everyone in the colony, then succumbed to malaria... if only humanity had invented something to shoot firefoam and *extinguish* flames instead of relying on an anti-incendiary landmine to stop fires...
That third question isn't actually a good of the few vs. good of the many question, but rather the morality of personally instigating a lesser evil vs. passively allowing a greater evil to occur.
I had to pause this video for so long... but here I am; after 75 exciting hours of Prey and I don't regret it at all. I have enjoyed a game I didn't even considered to play thanks to you guys. Keep up the good work!
Do you chose the needs of the many over the needs of the few? Not always. If the 'few' is my kid? Screw the many. And most parents would probably say the same. It's how we are biologically wired, to save your progeny to promote your genetic contribution.
False analogy, and hyperbole. And honestly... I dunno, even were it to come to such a ridiculous choice. Humans are not rational on that topic, and a parent defending their children is one of the least rational positions to be in. After all, if, in this game, you can risk all of humanity to save a few people you barely knew, how much more likely is someone to risk humanity to save their child? For a prime example, see also: Breaking Bad. His motive for doing what he does: Because he wants to leave his family well enough off after he is gone. And so he screws over hundreds, maybe thousands, by doing what he does. All for his family. The needs of the few emotionally important over the needs of the many. I am not saying it is a correct decision, or the morally right one. I'm simply saying it is the one that almost every parent would make, generally without hesitation.
I bought this game on Steam sale after seeing some good reviews, but let it linger until i watched the intro of this video, which spurred me to finally install and play it. Wow. Game of the year for me. In retrospect, it deserved a full-priced purchase. Of course i missed the wonderful ethics wink, which really puts everything in perspective. Well played, Arkane. More, please! Thanks, James & Dan!
This is really, really important. What you said in the closing statement: that you had to believe in the good of humanity, because you are human. this small, very logical sentiment is the reason that majorities (white people, straight people, abled people, men) will always opt to spare perpetrators within their own group, simply because "I know we are better than this! what if it were me!", but it also means that sometimes perpetrators get a very easy way out. Like what we saw after Charlottesville and Las Vegas. It always boils down "No! It's not white people", thereby completely ignoring the prevalence of toxic whiteness and white supremacy at work. It is all a fundamental, systemic issue that depends on the status as mainstream. It has no inherent value. In a different setting with different majorities, this would be different. But on Earth, or rather in the US, these fundamentals are set in the favor of white abled cishet men mostly. You can do away with some deviation from that of course: I'm queer and nonbinary, I'm disabled, but I'm still a white person (and I read as guy, so people will afford me male privilege, more pay and more recognition). I think that it's very important to be harsher to ourselves, and not redeem people, simply because they resemble us (and we feel bad condemning ourselves). Otherwise, the system will never change.
The problem with prey and the idea that even one escaping would doom humanity, is the fact that I kill 100s of them myself. You never see how they spawn, it just doesn't actually click that they are that dangerous when I'm mowing them down.
This added an interesting facet to the question of "what's worse, one who chooses evil or one who is innately only evil?" for me. I do believe in redemption. But I also believe choosing evil is far worse than it just... being normal/instinctual, etc. It's sort. of mind boggling now to be wrapping my head around "okay, choosing evil people are worse because they chose evil, but also shouldn't necessarily receive a more destructive fate than intrinsic evil because they yet have the capacity for change". I had no idea what this game was, and while I love EC videos, I usually haven't played the games they talk about nor do I feel more motivated to do so after EC talks about them. But this time, I almost wish I had known to turn off the video and play Prey first. Thank you!
I chose "Familiar", "Afraid", "Switch Tracks", "Jump on the Track" when I played. And I do admit that I never really picked up on any of this until you pointed it out - I thought the psych test was just a bit of world building at the beginning.
I went out and immediately bought this game on the strength of the first 20 seconds of this video and it was worth it. Do yourselves a favor and play the game first before watching the video. You won't be sorry!
What an awesome birthday present! That bit at the end does make me wonder why my faith in humanity didn't drop to 0 a long time ago. I completely agree with that!
i would love a series focused on the philosophies of different games like this! like Undertale, Lisa: The Painful, etc. i know that wisecrack has a couple videos like that, but I'd like to see this more from you guys! anyways, great video as always
Absolutely BRILLIANT vid, thank you! Absolutely LOVED your whole analysis, with which I agree on every single point. I liked especially ( 8:24 ): "you might be the worst person, the one most willing to spend others lives, the one most certain that the ends will justify the means..." What a wonderful and perfectly accurate reflection on human condition, and what a clever way to slap some sense into people, making them realize what they really are, how they really behave on their every day real lives outside the game. Bravo, Extra Credits, your Channel is a jewel, and proves again and again how games are truly important, and how can they make a real difference.
I have had prey for a while now (bought it new, never got around to playing it) the intro to this episode convinced me to play it through and I haven't been disappointed (still haven't beat it due to a Nightmare spawning as I enter deep storage..) I will be back after I finish the game
This concept reminds me of an old psvita game that i used to play called Soul Sacrifice. The main premise of the game was the concept of "G"ood and "E"vil and how in most games they're portrayed as absolute. Form most of the game you play through the life a forgotten sorcerer, on a mission to kill or save Arch-fiends in order to prevent the end of the world with the aid of another sorcerer. Arch-fiends are basically formal humans that have turned into monsters driven to insanity due to their desires by a golden chalice ( grants wishes). In game Arch-fiends are seen as irredeemable and should be killed on the spot. However if you actually go to read the story for these Arch-fiends, they actually turn out to be more of victims than anything else. In the end your ally starts to lose his own sanity due to an existential identity crisis and eventually turns into an Arch-fiend. You first attempt to kill him but fail, and each time the arch-fiend tries to save you trying to cling onto some form of its sanity, you try to kill him and die again. Eventually you given turn into an arch-fiend your-self, a book with the records of all of the events that have happened in the hopes that some soul would have the chance to stop you old ally. the game then flashes back to the prison sell in which your given the option to fight the Arch-fiend. Upon defeating him the game makes a complete U turn. The golden chalice appears and you are given with the same option as before but under different circumstances . Kill him and reset the world to what it once was and take on his curse thus risking your sanity, Or save him knowing that your chances of trying to bring him back are slim and throwing away the lives of countless people solely for a chance of bringing your old ally back. This is a very shortened Version of what the game actually is but I'd really like to see an Extra Credits discussion about it someday
I am so glad that you guys did this video!!! Prey did really made me think on that, and the choices I made at first but how I really acted. Although I thought that, if the Typhon have gotten so close to Earth, then a larger scale conflict was inevitable. Humanity as a whole needed to know the threat and how to deal with it, and yes, I did thought that Typhon based mods were the answer to uplift humanity. But another thought I had was "is this neural network a greater form of consciousness..? Are those assimilated by the Typhon really dead or do they get to be a part of something greater? Do we really have the right to destroy something that we really do not understand and that potentially can be better than our existence..? Wht if The Apex is really the ultimate state of being..?" And my choices were about that. I know maybe that was not the point of the game, but I did really enjoy that the game made me think about it. I really got invested, and I love when any form of art makes me feel that, and makes me think. I am telling everyone I know about Prey
When these guys tell you you should play a game before watching a video, you know it's for a damn good reason. I ignored them on this aspect every time, and I always regret it. They are now on my approved hype-trust list.
I just want to say THESE type of episodes are my FAVORITE! I always wish for you guys to do more and more of them. I've bought Tale Tell's Walking dead and Spec's Op the Line from these sort of episodes. I like it when you dive deep into a game and analyze it. Man I really wish I could play Prey. I love Psychological games. BUT with the first person/how the camera moves my vertigo would not allow me to play with out feeling sick. I really enjoyed this episode!
This is why prey's story telling is absolutely brilliant. Unlike other game's that just dumb down morality to a simple "Kill bad science thing", it actually has the capacity to ask the difference between right and wrong. The character's are all well written. Each one has a good sense of justification for what they're doing. No one person is ever presented as plainly "The bad guy". It's all just a question of what make's morality so complex. And ever question rarely has an easy answer.
Oh yes, he was mentally ill and incredibly unstable. But he was also tactically brilliant and managed to survive while everyone else around him was being mind controlled. Comparatively speaking, he may have only killed a few people from the company. People who he believed was recklessly killing everyone for the sake of "Science". He wasn't entirely wrong or right. Although he was very, very ill.
As yes, deep philosophical games. There's way too few of those out there. Great video, I wasn't planning on playing Prey and kind of regret it now, thinking it was just another horror shooter.
What do you think is true about yourself? Will you act that way when push comes to shove? Prey: The Enemy Inside puts you to the test.
I think one thing that wasn't discussed was that humans rarely think big picture, its simply not something we do unless we have the time or force it. So when you hear someone in need, you help them, with all that you can. You are doomed but that doesn't mean others need to, I think most didn't consider the earth and the dangers so it was not even a question of the few versus the many. But rather how perceptive we are about our own behavior before acting. Just like the Typhoon is without empathy, humanity is barely without tunnel-vision. At least in that regard, human is good, but a little dumb.
I have not played Prey, but the game seems to hold you (the player) accountable for the actions of the main character. Is it right for us, the player, a different person, to be held accountable for the actions of someone of the same body, but different mind? It would make more sense to put the player in a position where they could commit these horrible crimes freely, then make them answer for it, like putting them in Skyrim, then holding them accountable for the people they stole from, the people they killed, and potentially re-building dangerous organizations like the brotherhood or the Thieves guild. How could I feel bad for killing people when I didn’t kill them, my “previous” self, someone who I don’t recognize or even know did.
Prey is one of the finest works of testing your own ethics... It's amazing
Try Dishonored then. Game from the same company as Prey.
I wish I could say I knew what was true about me, that I could be confident saying I am who I am and won't falter from that stand point. But I can't, I cant say for sure if I could be the person I claim to be on that test. But what I do know is true about myself is this. I would gladly sacrifice myself for others. That if given the chance...i would be the person who bites the bullet so others wouldn't, even if I feel they are not someone you would think would be worth it.
So much subtext here I didn't even realise. The core ethic that Prey values and features is empathy. All of the choices you make aren't really good or evil, but empathetic vs apathetic, and I think there's a truth to that. We can't always be good, but we can try to be empathetic.
Very well said! That's definitely reflective of the kinds of choices most of us make in real life anyway.
Their was this poem I saw once that works well with this:
“Youth Eternal and Beauty Undying are the Poisons that welcome sin
And as all things do, sin comes full circle
Thus lies the reason wherein’
That in truth we are inherently evil
Yet evil is not of our name
“What is Good and what is Bad?” They ask
And so, what right have they to blame?
In the Purest sense and to a discerning eye
Evil is true good
“Then what is Evil?” it is naught
Oh my beautiful Monarch their is only
Light and Dark”
To expand on that further, it's definitely a question of who you're empathetic to. Are you empathetic to the scientists who are testing such horrible atrocities on real actual human beings, or are you empathetic to the rapists, murderers and pedophiles the scientists are testing on? It was hard for me to not let that man get killed by the mimic in the test chamber but only because I personally benefited by letting him live and letting him open the chamber that I set him free and fought the voltaic phantom on the other side of the chamber...
Reminds me of Kreia's words from KOTOR 2.
"Apathy is death; worse than death, for even the dead fertilize the soil in which they are buried" (paraphrased)
You know, you said giving us spoilers would ruin this game for us. But now I gotta play this game after seeing this video.
You'reThatMantis ,that's how you know a game is a good, when the journey is still good even if you know the goal and how it all will end
Interesting study was done about this phenomenon of "spoiling stories" a few years ago. As it turns out people enjoy a story that has been spoiled more than one that hasn't (specifically those which have a mystery within it's plot). The study was done numerous times with many groups of people over a period of a few years and with each test group they found similar, if not, the same result every time. Look up SuperEyepatchWolf's video on the subject, it is very informative on the subject.
It is very much worth playing. For what its worth coming from some random schmuck on the internet, I highly recommend it!
Agreed,
I have never played this game but knew about the 'choose your ending' end, and the 'who couldn't see this coming' twist.
But now I want to play this game so I can see what puzzles a 'minimal-hacking' and 'minimal-killing' run will bring.
Joel,
Anecdotal, I know, but something I think this is something we have all indeed shared at some point:
How many people have re-watched an old show with a really good plot, especially if it involves mystery, and enjoyed being able to see the subtle clues that you didn't know to look for the first time through?
Well I had zero interest in Prey before watching this but now I kinda do want to play it. Interesting stuff.
Put it on your steam wishlist, I sure did :D
same
Watch Errant Signal's video on it as well, he covers the other aspects as well.
I bought it for 20 euro totally worth it. Was a while ago now but still thinking about the game.
Also, check out Noah Gervais' video where he compares the original Prey with the new Prey. That guy is brilliant.
Glad to see Prey getting love. It's SO GOOD.
i don't think the main purpose of the trolley problem is to gauge whether someone prioritizes the good of the many vs the good of the few, but rather the nature of complicity in the death of a person as opposed to a bystander passively allowing people to die
That is the correct intention of the question but it's poorly constructed. You've been given the choice to change tracks with a conviently placed lever right next to you. This puts you in a position where you can't be not choosing. choosing not to react is choosing to kill five people. you had nothing to lose to save them and yet you chose their death for some reason. You can stay and watch or leave or run away but the fact of the matter is you chose one of two options. Kill one to save five or let five get killed. But it doesn't change the fact that someone get's killed and you're responsible for the outcome. It might feel like not reacting keeps your hands clean because you haven't sacrificed that person. But in actuality you'd be sacrificing the five to keep your mind at ease. Of course what happens if you'd been put in that situation for real is anyone's guess but that doesn't change the fact that you've chosen the death of _someone_.
But it raises another interesting question which to be honest interests me a lot more.
So we know you'd have chosen either way but to what extent would or should you be accountable?
I mean on the one hand you pull the lever and you're by definition a murderer but on the other hand you chose the death of the five as the only one in the position to do so. Is murder in that instance still ethically or morally reprehensible? Can you really be judged if put in a dillema in the first place or are you freed from ethical judgment no matter what you choose? How is choosing the passive bystander solution a way out? Are the lives of the many really more valuable than a single one? How is that even quantifiable? If it's not then why would sacrificing the few for the many count as a good thing? Am I even murdering anyone if I never intended for any of this to happen? Would it change anything if either option had contined a loved one? if so then would I be the bad guy if I chose the loved one no matter his position or if I ignored him and threw the weight of our emotional bond right out the window? WHAT IS LIFE??? (T_T)
Both
since you know you are being tested, the correct answer is then to make the tester believe there has been a failure in the machinery in the hope they cancel the test to repair the fault and try again.
Yeah I prefer the pushing of the fat guy from the bridge onto the track version.It removes the conviently places lever and makes the murder of the one a bit more direct.
To me Dan makes you think about the point, "either way death". So then I feel like doing nothing, because IMO there's nothing I CAN do. Here's an ironic teaching then: "Whoever destroys a soul, it is considered as if he destroyed an entire world. And whoever saves a life, it is considered as if he saved an entire world."
There was something similar in Deus Ex: Human Revolution's ending that a lot of people miss, and I admit I didn't realize it until days after I finished it. It had a similar multiple-choice ending that got a lot of flack as lazy and disappointing. But the ending itself wasn't what mattered. It was that question.
The entire game served to demonstrate the potential benefits and pitfalls of cybernetic augmentation and transhumanism in general, something that many believe we could start seeing in a few decades. The story has already ended by the time you get to choose an "ending". The game is saying "So that's the problem we're facing, what do you do about it?"
Oh god Deus Ex: human revolution. When I learned that the people were mindcrushed into zombies, I resolved to save everyone. Nonlethal takedowns. Every. Single. Enemy. It took five times as long as it needed to, but I made it, not a single innocent harmed. Then I got to the end... It floored me. I had my choice of which faction I wanted to crucify as a scapegoat... or I could bury us all in concrete and leave the world without an answer. I had to put down the controller and think that over for literally half an hour, and for every scenario, I thought of ways it could go wrong. Innocents who would die. Greed or corruption or panic or ignorance, pointing the finger at ANYONE would have only made the problem worse.
So I did what I had to do. After sparing the lives of so many people on the way down, I buried the truth on the ocean floor. God would sort us out, and the world would move on.
Extra credits? More like Existential Credits
...
I'm not sorry.
Putting some "extra philosophy" into games! ;)
Thanks for responding, I feel validated in some weird way.
someone's been taking a page out of kurzgesagt's book, i know that existential crisis when i see one.
DisLichii I don't know who your talking about, but I know what an existential Crisis is, so I'm going to take that as a compliment.
Bad dum tss
Is that actual A N I M A T I O N in the start?
Well... sort of
Finn Else-McCormick pretty simple animation
yah
The irony is that he is an animator in the less animated show
Motion tweening, by the looks of it.
They're evolving... Slowly.
I was literally writing this exact same video for the last two weeks, and then I clicked on this video... Well, there goes two weeks of work.
it was worth it, your video was really good :)
Strat-Edgy Productions Depending on how far through it you are it may be worth finishing. I know it can be hard to see someone else do the same thing right before you do it (and UA-cam comments don't help) but in an intellectual conversation more voices are never bad and more often than not two people with the same topic, examples, and info can create wildly different final experiences due to wildly different creative processes. ESPECIALLY when it comes to opinion pieces, which I would say this partly is considering how abstract this is. So ultimately, Extra Credits made the same video as you doesn't mean you have to scrap your own video and you can even build it too compliment theirs.
Um, do it anyway? It's not like Extra Credits has 100% of UA-cam's eyes. Also, your work will be unique, even if it's similar.
Being a fan of your work, I'd certainly watch your take on Prey as well. It's a game that really flew under peoples radars but had a lot of good stuff to it, especially compared to most triple-A games nowadays.
Strat-Edgy Productions I'd love to see your take on it dude, don't throw that out!
Multi-track drifing!!!
penacova1 i was going to write that...
Yağız Efe Demirel Hello, fellow trolley memer!
Get em allll!!!!
penacova1 try googling The Prisoner's Trolley Problemma
Googled it. Was not disappointed! Thank you :)
I'm loving the new small bits of animation you guys are adding!
Still think it was pretty underrated. One of the very few games this year i had trouble putting down the night i started playing it. If it just had another name.
which one's where the others? I've been playing many triple A titles this summer but prey was the only one i managed to finish, it's really good!
Prey was excellent. So sad more people didn't play it. They even released a demo, which is what drew me in. Prey is the first game that satisfied my Bioshock cravings in a while...played the first Dishonored but, while it was cool, didn't love it.
Same here I just couldn't stop playing
It was one of the best EC episodes EVER. Thank you, Dan!
FlarbaGlarb my bad, should've said "guys". I kinda forgot about the rest of the team because of Dan's tweets. Sorry...
I did what i did to get trophies
I often play with an achievement-hunting focus as well, and I love criticizing myself as I do so. I have to say that Prey is one of the few games where, after a while, I felt truly attached to the choices *I* wanted to make, rather than just trying to get as many achievements as possible in one run.
--Belinda
heh, i save and quited a couple times to get a bunch, but i could never get the last two (kill everyone, and the awkward ride home)
I just play through once without knowing the trophies and then go through it again to try to get as many as i can. I must've played through Prey about 10 times to get all trophies
I looked up a guide on youtube and just followed that. If i remember correctly, you need to keep the cook alive and he'll eventually give you access to 4 people that you can't get to any other way
Metal Monkey, the cook isn't the whole who grants you access to those people. That said, the "find everyone" achievement doesn't require you to actually find "everyone." It requires you to find everyone you physically can in the course of one playthrough.
*Was completely uninterested in prey so ignored the spoiler warning*
*Wants to play a spoiler-free version of prey now that I know what the spoiler is*
Same (I expect to be ignored)
there are some flaws that bother me, in the case for a vacation, i would try something new, but in case of combat, i would only try something new if i had to, but the bigger one is the accept death sentence or not, if i feel guilty over my actions, i would say yes, but in the game, you dont remember doing those things, you dont feel guilty, why would you accept a death sentence?
It is also practically forced into your skull that over the course of uncountable neuromod treatments Morgan has undergone significant personality changes AND doesn't even remember doing anything since all pre-neuromod information was drilled out of their brain... so to hold what is essentially a completely different person accountable for those crimes is a bit stupid...
Well if we go with the completely different person perspective caused by brain wipe hasn't the evil Morgan already been executed making this point rather...mot.
Black Steel Kita well there's also that other question of identity which isn't really touched on here but is the much more obvious theme throughout the game. The question of what defines you, and what that definition means for the boundaries of what is or is not you. That's an interesting, if for many people more simple, question on its own. And it does a wonderful job of masking these deeper themes.
my issue is that its a game, that does not make anything the video said wrong, but it means we have be pre-programmed by countless other games about the formula
Why did you mostly only shoot and hack? because that is how it worked for many other games, why did you try to save people? because in many other games that is the goal, why did you try to find a way to save yourself AND destroy the aliens? because there is always that 'have your cake and eat it too' solution in other games
Yeah! You're not the person who murdered these people, you have no responsibility. Unless you specifically ordered to have your memories removed and personality altered to avoid punishment. At which point... wait, you're still not whoever ordered to murder those people. You can't be held responsible... Just because you're inhabiting the body of a murderer doesn't mean you can be punished! Although if it's a physical defect in that body's brain that caused the murders, that makes a little more sense, I guess. But man, minority report. Can't punish 'em before they even do the thing.
"This is it, here we go, 3 2 1-" *Buffer Symbol*
'I keep on having this dream inside the static...'
And now that the good bits are spoiled I want to play it. Funny how that works.
That final post-credit scene puts the entire game into a whole new perspective, and good god do I love this game for it.
Arkane have proven themselves time and time again of being magnificent developers, and I honestly consider Prey to be the best game they've ever made to date: it might even be their magnum opus.
Really nice job paralleling the test questions to the gameplay of Prey. I normally would have felt frustrated about a "It was actually all VR" ending, but I think they pulled it off well.
Where you kind of lose me is in the whole "Is humanity worth saving?" deal. I feel like this is a boring dartboard justification for every anime villain, usually someone of non-human species judging them. I think this is really mostly just the result of writers who have gotten their kicks from plumbing the depths of horribleness and shock value. I really cannot imagine having a large team of bright, enthusiastic scientists who are so willing to ravage people to death just for the purpose of an experiment while acting with total detachment - it is comically absurd. Scientists have certainly done terrible things, like design the atom bomb - but usually did so with a form of detachment, like hitting buttons on a computer screen. As large-scale events, there's certainly a wealth of horrific occurrences across history that seem to suggest humans like being evil, but any kind of close focus tends to show far more nuance than we can give in one sentence. There's just not bodies of people who wake up and say "Man, I would love to burn babies alive today."
I'd remind viewers that news media of the 2000s is very fast to focus on the most negative elements of society, and that the fiction that consumes so much of your life almost always needs a villain and dark conflicts leading to deaths and pain. It's very easy for this surrounding of negative imagery to paint a supremely negative view of humanity; but to people who don't spend the majority of their time in these worlds, it isn't even a balanced, nuanced decision. It's the difference between petting a dog and kicking it.
The best part is that they seed in the suspicions about what's going on earlier on.
As soon as I found the audio log about "Hey, should we inject someone's neurons into the typhon, and see if it develops empathy?" and I realized that I, as the protagonist never spoke a word the whole time...I had suspicions. Then the flashback happened and I heard "You're not what they say you are" and Immediately was like "Oh. There's a significant chance that I'm actually a typhon with Morgan Yu's brains. I wonder how this will play out."
And when it didn't show up, I was like "...Huh...I wonder. They said in the recording that they'd have to simulate memories to test the typhon..."...And then the post-credits scene happens and I went "Hah, I had a feeling."
Plus what you did in the game is memories of things that actually happened, so the ending is basically a ju.p forward in time to see how things played out after. It's a nice way to do the simulation plot that still gives weight to your actions.
This makes me want to play Prey, and I thought it was just another horror-shooter.... now this makes it sound pretty interesting.
"What we want to believe about ourselves and what's actually true may be very different things. "
Bladerunner 2049 in a nutshell
No lie this video made me buy prey and I'm really glad I did. Loving it. Way to bring some intellectual heft to the gaming community
The fact that you can ask yourself these questions, that you can reflect on them, tells me others can be like you, that people can manifest empathy and choose to hope for a better future. I hope that is allowed to carry on and becomes our dominant ideology.
The answers are changed by context.
"What if the Typhon comes with the survivors?"
There's a thing called quarantine, we do it to astronauts coming back from space, even Apollo 13. If it's not found during quarantine, it'd happen eventually anyway.
And it's not like The Thing, which is far more patient, and it's shape shifting almost perfect. The Mimics would jump at people before even an hour had passed.
"Why did you make the Mimic kill the prisoner. The message could've lied."
Because if it's true, I'd rather not have him walk around the station. His dialogue made it uncertain if the crimes are real or made up.
If there was an option to put him in permanent lockup, I would've done so. But instead I must hope he doesn't get out in any way.
And it's not out of the realms of possibility that he's guilty. There's plenty of people who do heinous crimes. It'd be more work to transfer an innocent man than a guilty one.
"Why didn't you sacrifice yourself when you said you would rather kill one than many?"
Because I have alien space magic, imagine the utility we could find with it. What if we did it with animals instead of people? We could even clone animals, no consciousness or suffering to worry about, just alien space magic.
Besides, what about the future? There WILL be a threat in the future, if not the Typhon, someone else. Having more tools will help, rather than hoping some other solution comes along, and even then, these solutions are unlikely to be mutually exclusive.
The best weapon against the Typhon, is the alien space magic.
You definitely need to do more research before making such far-reaching decisions buddy.
... no consciousness or suffering? Come on son.
Ah it's the old paradox. I had zero interest in Prey so I gladly watched this thinking "Eh, I'll never play it." But that sounds amazing and now I'm gutted I won't get to be caught by surprise on it... but then I NEVER would have played it had I not been told about it so... ah oh well. I'll probably just play it several times and see what happens instead >D
But this has just gone WAY up in my list of games I need to play.
Agree with everything you said. Unfortunately the insane resource management drove me off eventually
7:08 Never thought about this, the idea of someone or something totally not seeing kiling as a big deal, not simply not empathizing but not understanding and valuing at all. This is pure nihilism. We would be screwed if people didn't have a trace of empathy, people scoff it, say it you can't feel others feeling, but be thankful that your brain literally makes you feel pain for others, it's what impedes a horror-like bloodbath of reality.
90% of comments: I should have played the game before watching.
10% of comments: That was a good review.
This might be my favourite episode of EC up to date, because of the topic (I love Prey despite it shortcomings) but also, if not mainly because of that beautiful closure. Makes me wonder, if I'll ever have a thought, on my own, as clear and genuine as That.
I feel like this game was misunderstood. This is the first positive thing I've seen of Prey. So many people hate it just cuz of the name :/
Awesome job in this video guys. Prey is my favorite game of all time. I never thought of Prey like that. Thanks of opening my eyes. It really helps see the game in a new and much more interesting light. Thanks so much and don't stop what you guys are doing. You all are awesome and amazing. (PS your history channel is also really awesome.)
I think people helped other npc because of fear of missing out of content. Mass effect made this more popular
Karan Chaphekar
Sometimes, it just feels good to help
Not helping hurts me
Yep, because of "more content", that's what videogames teach us.
More because you can't make aliens permanently friendly to you. Humans and human-programmed tech are friendly to you by default, and you won't like feeling of loneliness, from being last human-like creature on space station, with nothing to support you.
I have to massively thank you guys for this video. I recently finished Prey a couple of weeks ago and it keeps coming back to me, this video's helping me process what it is about the game that I love. It felt like a really underrated title, I'm glad I made time for it.
Wow. This game is secretly brilliant
My favorite episode yet. James' writing in this one is phenomenal.
Now I'll go get that game immediately.
This has been the most mind opening episode of extra credits, well done, I have literal goosebumps. I'm going to go sit in a corner and re-evaluate human kind.
Frankly, a game is a very bad way to find out wether or not your basic desposition towards certain things is true or not.
If you said that you like to try new things but still only fell back on guns and hacking most of the times, that doesn't mean that your answer was a lie or anything. It simply means that in this context you didn't prefer to try a new thing. But that doesn't mean that you wouldn't prefer new things in other contexts!
The same is true for all the other stuff.
In the end, it still is just a game and your behaviour in a game can and will be drastically different compared to your behaviour in everyday life.
I mean, all those damn questions are impossible to generalize, it always depends on what's on the line.
I don't think the game meant to dismiss your answers, but rather make you see them from a new perspective.
I agree with you that you will not always treat a game the same as you would real life, but pray allows a much closer representation of what you would do then a pen and paper test. And to a degree if you try to act like your choices are real it can show a lot about you.
rand0m508
I'm not really criticising the game but Extra Credits regarding this point.
this video made me pause at the intro, buy prey, drop 40 hours into exploring and finishing the game, and come back to watch the rest. 100% worth it. Magnificent. :D
There's just one problem with the issue of "one of those shape-shifting aliens could be on the shuttle you might use to evacuate the people from the station, and by helping those people you put everyone back on earth at risk".
Why? Your character has a device called a psychoscope. One of the upgrades you can get for it allows you to see if an object is, in fact, a shape-shifting alien before it can attack. Even if there weren't enough time to check before leaving because the entire station was about to blow up, you could scan everything in the shuttle after the fact while you were drifting in space, and if it turned out one of those things was hiding on board, you could deal with it then.
Best case scenario? You trap it with the GLOO cannon and kill it.
Worst case scenario? It overruns the shuttle and you have to reset the course to send the shuttle away from earth & maybe put out a warning message that the shuttle should be avoided and destroyed, before you drift about dead in space. Either way, you at least tried to save everyone, without stupidly ignoring the risk of those monsters reaching earth.
No-one sells me on a game with such grace and honesty, quite like you guys.
Damn. dan, you must lift coz you had to be pretty strong to carry those spoilers in order to drop them on us.
"I am buying you time right now, and that window is closing." I loved this.
Rebuttal: Does a question "force examination" when it is either too subtle or poorly stated to make a clear point?
Zaruian Perhaps. But if an argument needs to be re-explained, at what point does self-reflection occur? The fact that many players appear to have not liked the ending seems to indicate that either the argument was uncompelling or poorly put forward.
A question could make a clear point and still force examination.
Well, no it can't, you can't force someone to look closer at what they are doing and analyze their choices.
Your question is a good counter to your own rebuttal however as when I tried to make an example I hit a wall and had to examine it further.
I think thats part of the point. People tend to respond to a lot of situations in a half-assed way because they fail to analyse the situation beforehand. And then shit happens.
Prey was one of the few video games in the past few years that actually made me sit back and THINK about what just happened and what I'd been doing the whole time. In the beginning, I answered the questions in the test; they were so quick, I felt like I'd seen them a thousand times before and I knew what my answers were. Then, as I played, I had almost forgotten about them. It was just about 3/4 of the way through where I had to choose whether to destroy the passenger shuttle going to Earth or let it continue (it's a quest line) where I realized the game had literally had me playing through the questions from the beginning of the game. I had to take a short break at that point and recall the events that corresponded with the opening quiz. I then realized that, as sure as I was with my answers, I had not been playing the game the way I had answered the questions. It was truly insightful, and no other game has given me a kind of introspective look in such a genuine way before. Prey was by far one of my favorite games of the past 5 years
"Which is more important: The good of the few, or the good of the many?" is a poor interpretation of the original question in the game here being; "A runaway train is bearing down on five people who are tied to the track. You can cause the train to switch tracks, but there is one person tied to the second track." In the original question there is blame association and personal creed/belief involved. On one hand the question omits who's responsible for the situation, but in taking action you choose to bare responsibility for the death of the single person. On the other hand you may believe in the creed that; "Doing nothing is evil enough." This weighs the individual's value of responsibility vs belief; judging vs feeling balance. The generalization you used here has nothing to do with that aspect of persona.
I must admit. Among the videos I browse through nearly weekly to listen to during gaming sessions I commonly pick from this channel. Your extra credit history is among my favorites. Your other videos have also brought up some spirited discussion in my family about human nature. But in my solemn moments when I have nothing but my own thoughts I rarely observe anything from this channel to entice my muses. Till now. I will happily say this is among my favorite thought provoking videos as to date and while I may not be a smart man I can defiantly understand this subject. Thank you for the amazing video!
if you condemn humanity for having empathy but not using it, but not a species with no empathy, that is basically saying that empathy is not universal, but your values on it are. That means that empathy is purely subjective and doesn't necessarily have a universal value. so you should not have the bias thought that "empathy is good". So even if humans suppress their empathy and are "evil", who cares? Why is that worse than having no empathy at all? you are a human, so you would rather have humanity live while the alien dies, and that is just as good a reason as any.
I really, >>really
Sorrry, I have to go and sit and contemplate on my existance for a while...
this has got to be one of the best EC vids in terms of writing and visuals.
"Push the fat man."
I did listen to you.... spent a 2 weeks and i finished the game....... MAN YOU WERE SOOOOOO RIGHT!!!! THIS GAME IS EPIC. The final scene was mindblowing! THX for not spoiling it to me.
I still would like to see what Prey 2 would have been.
Possibly one of the most insightful compelling episodes I've ever seen. Superb and more like it please!
I wonder if there are any spoilers......
I like to try new things when it's comfortable and safe to do so. I like to try new fooods, but when a bear is running at me I'm not going to go "ahhh the gun is too played out, I'm going to try something new and stop it with a flashlight instead!"
Yeah I think evolution has "taken care" of all the people with that kind of thinking.
I always think of the entire "good of few good of many" thing as rather stupid. In the test you assume absolute certainty, therefore it can (and should) be reduced to an equation. IRL this is obviously not as simple, but that doesn`t change the correct answer to the test. I therefore see no real "realization". Just the game (or any medium where this comes up) telling you, hey RL is more complex than me, or a test, or any simulation. Which imo is pretty dumb.
Jim Kirk i think the underlying problem with this question is morality. If everything is down to a percentage what happens when you are the lesser and more expendable percentage. It's easy to say that others are easily expendable when it's your choice. but what about when your the one chosen to be sacrificed. There is something inherently wrong feeling to us when our hopes and dreams are suddenly tossed aside becuase we are the expendable one. Thats I think what this question is really tryung to get at.
In the real world, the equation must account for these probabilities. Rather than "Would you sacrifice a few to save the many?" a more realistic question is "Would you risk the many to save a few?" In Prey, sending survivors home saves them, but risks all of humanity. Do you take a chance to try to save everyone, or do you sacrifice some for the certainty (or vastly increased chance) of saving most?
We take certain hypotheticals for granted as being true, for example you should save a child over an adult if you can only save one; we try to figure out heuristics to figure out the most probable morally right answer for one reason, in AI research, autonomous cars try to make the best decision.
Jim Kirk He misunderstood the question, it's really a question comparing Utilitarianism to Denotological Ethics.
While a utilitarian (John Stuart Mill) would always put the good of the many over the good of the few, he would also weigh off age, value to the world, moral judgement of the person, and many other factors to determine the moral decision. If all he knew was that 5 people would die if he did nothing, but 1 person would die if he switched the tracks then he would obviously save the 5 people. But if the 5 people were all 90 year olds with stage 3 brain cancer and the other person was a healthy, smart, successful 25 year old, then he would let the train kill the 5 people.
Meanwhile a Denotologist (Immanuel Kant) would say that you should make the decision based on what you think is always wrong and what is always right. For example, let's say you think murder is immoral, if you were to switch the train tracks, then you just sentenced a man to death, which is murder and an immoral act so you shouldn't do this. While this might seem like extremely simple thinking at first glance, the idea is that if you lead by example and other people also do the same, then instead everyone being a bunch of random strangers always conflicting with each other on what they think is the good for the most possible people, everyone will be moral agents that will only do what is morally permissible. It's like a constitution, a set of standards beyond reproach, only instead of laws affecting a nation it's a moral code affecting an individual.
One problem with games, there's no room for quite a bit of nuance in decisions typically.
I saw errant signal's episode on prey a week ago, and I'm loving the take you put on the game. I have a much fuller understanding of it after seeing both videos, which is nice, after having blatantly ignored the spoiler warning at the start of each one.
I play RimWorld mate... I know what is true human suffering and darkness
João Pedro Nasser I ate a bowl of nails for breakfast... without a table
I lit a guy on fire and ate my dead dog raw because the guy who I set on fire was the cook and he died... Then because I ate my dog raw, I went on a psychopathic rampage with my cybernetically enhanced arms and murdered everyone in the colony, then succumbed to malaria... if only humanity had invented something to shoot firefoam and *extinguish* flames instead of relying on an anti-incendiary landmine to stop fires...
That third question isn't actually a good of the few vs. good of the many question, but rather the morality of personally instigating a lesser evil vs. passively allowing a greater evil to occur.
They aren’t kidding about those spoilers. Go play the game. They actually spoil the end right after the intro. No excuses, go play it.
I had to pause this video for so long... but here I am; after 75 exciting hours of Prey and I don't regret it at all. I have enjoyed a game I didn't even considered to play thanks to you guys. Keep up the good work!
The single worst decision that was made during this game's development was to call it Prey.
It was called "Neuroshock" in early development, I think that name suits it much better.
This video gave me a whole new perspective on Prey. I can now safely say it is one of my favourite games of all time due to this video
*INCEPTION HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORN*
"Everything is going to be okay" is the best song in the game
Do you chose the needs of the many over the needs of the few? Not always. If the 'few' is my kid? Screw the many. And most parents would probably say the same. It's how we are biologically wired, to save your progeny to promote your genetic contribution.
ShneekeyTheLost but if you save only your kid and almost everyone is dead after, I don't think you choose saving a child rather saving the humanity
False analogy, and hyperbole. And honestly... I dunno, even were it to come to such a ridiculous choice. Humans are not rational on that topic, and a parent defending their children is one of the least rational positions to be in. After all, if, in this game, you can risk all of humanity to save a few people you barely knew, how much more likely is someone to risk humanity to save their child?
For a prime example, see also: Breaking Bad. His motive for doing what he does: Because he wants to leave his family well enough off after he is gone. And so he screws over hundreds, maybe thousands, by doing what he does. All for his family. The needs of the few emotionally important over the needs of the many.
I am not saying it is a correct decision, or the morally right one. I'm simply saying it is the one that almost every parent would make, generally without hesitation.
I bought this game on Steam sale after seeing some good reviews, but let it linger until i watched the intro of this video, which spurred me to finally install and play it.
Wow. Game of the year for me. In retrospect, it deserved a full-priced purchase.
Of course i missed the wonderful ethics wink, which really puts everything in perspective. Well played, Arkane. More, please!
Thanks, James & Dan!
This is really, really important. What you said in the closing statement: that you had to believe in the good of humanity, because you are human. this small, very logical sentiment is the reason that majorities (white people, straight people, abled people, men) will always opt to spare perpetrators within their own group, simply because "I know we are better than this! what if it were me!", but it also means that sometimes perpetrators get a very easy way out. Like what we saw after Charlottesville and Las Vegas. It always boils down "No! It's not white people", thereby completely ignoring the prevalence of toxic whiteness and white supremacy at work. It is all a fundamental, systemic issue that depends on the status as mainstream. It has no inherent value. In a different setting with different majorities, this would be different. But on Earth, or rather in the US, these fundamentals are set in the favor of white abled cishet men mostly. You can do away with some deviation from that of course: I'm queer and nonbinary, I'm disabled, but I'm still a white person (and I read as guy, so people will afford me male privilege, more pay and more recognition). I think that it's very important to be harsher to ourselves, and not redeem people, simply because they resemble us (and we feel bad condemning ourselves). Otherwise, the system will never change.
Wow. Just wow. The very end made me tear up a little. Good work, guys. Keep challenging us!
The problem with prey and the idea that even one escaping would doom humanity, is the fact that I kill 100s of them myself. You never see how they spawn, it just doesn't actually click that they are that dangerous when I'm mowing them down.
I would pay money to be able to experience this game for the first time again. What an absolutely phenomenal work of art.
Original Prey is better.
This added an interesting facet to the question of "what's worse, one who chooses evil or one who is innately only evil?" for me. I do believe in redemption. But I also believe choosing evil is far worse than it just... being normal/instinctual, etc. It's sort. of mind boggling now to be wrapping my head around "okay, choosing evil people are worse because they chose evil, but also shouldn't necessarily receive a more destructive fate than intrinsic evil because they yet have the capacity for change". I had no idea what this game was, and while I love EC videos, I usually haven't played the games they talk about nor do I feel more motivated to do so after EC talks about them. But this time, I almost wish I had known to turn off the video and play Prey first. Thank you!
I was only interested in prey for the graphics and the non-white protagonist, but holy shit this is amazing.
Why does race have to anything with this game?
ilikeceral3 You were only interested in the color of the protagonists skin?
Just to be a nitpicky jerk but Morgan Yu is half-German and half-Chinese. So, technically speaking they are just as white as they are non-white.
I chose "Familiar", "Afraid", "Switch Tracks", "Jump on the Track" when I played. And I do admit that I never really picked up on any of this until you pointed it out - I thought the psych test was just a bit of world building at the beginning.
Eh I liked the game part of Prey, but not much else.
I was the opposite, didn't care the for the gameplay very much but the world and characters fascinated me :)
InMaTeofDeath ,that's an opinion and it should be respected
I liked both (though the gameplay is kind of derpy at times)
This is my favorite ep of Extra Credits.
I went out and immediately bought this game on the strength of the first 20 seconds of this video and it was worth it. Do yourselves a favor and play the game first before watching the video. You won't be sorry!
From the very beginning I pushed the button. After hearing this very compelling argument.... button here I come!
What an awesome birthday present! That bit at the end does make me wonder why my faith in humanity didn't drop to 0 a long time ago. I completely agree with that!
i would love a series focused on the philosophies of different games like this! like Undertale, Lisa: The Painful, etc.
i know that wisecrack has a couple videos like that, but I'd like to see this more from you guys! anyways, great video as always
Absolutely BRILLIANT vid, thank you! Absolutely LOVED your whole analysis, with which I agree on every single point. I liked especially ( 8:24 ): "you might be the worst person, the one most willing to spend others lives, the one most certain that the ends will justify the means..." What a wonderful and perfectly accurate reflection on human condition, and what a clever way to slap some sense into people, making them realize what they really are, how they really behave on their every day real lives outside the game. Bravo, Extra Credits, your Channel is a jewel, and proves again and again how games are truly important, and how can they make a real difference.
You hit it out of the park with this one, guys.
Well done.
I really missed those episodes that focus on what makes a certain game special :D
Keep up the awesome work ;)
Prey is AMAZING!
Best Intro Ever
I have had prey for a while now (bought it new, never got around to playing it) the intro to this episode convinced me to play it through and I haven't been disappointed (still haven't beat it due to a Nightmare spawning as I enter deep storage..) I will be back after I finish the game
This concept reminds me of an old psvita game that i used to play called Soul Sacrifice. The main premise of the game was the concept of "G"ood and "E"vil and how in most games they're portrayed as absolute. Form most of the game you play through the life a forgotten sorcerer, on a mission to kill or save Arch-fiends in order to prevent the end of the world with the aid of another sorcerer. Arch-fiends are basically formal humans that have turned into monsters driven to insanity due to their desires by a golden chalice ( grants wishes). In game Arch-fiends are seen as irredeemable and should be killed on the spot. However if you actually go to read the story for these Arch-fiends, they actually turn out to be more of victims than anything else.
In the end your ally starts to lose his own sanity due to an existential identity crisis and eventually turns into an Arch-fiend. You first attempt to kill him but fail, and each time the arch-fiend tries to save you trying to cling onto some form of its sanity, you try to kill him and die again. Eventually you given turn into an arch-fiend your-self, a book with the records of all of the events that have happened in the hopes that some soul would have the chance to stop you old ally. the game then flashes back to the prison sell in which your given the option to fight the Arch-fiend. Upon defeating him the game makes a complete U turn. The golden chalice appears and you are given with the same option as before but under different circumstances . Kill him and reset the world to what it once was and take on his curse thus risking your sanity, Or save him knowing that your chances of trying to bring him back are slim and throwing away the lives of countless people solely for a chance of bringing your old ally back.
This is a very shortened Version of what the game actually is but I'd really like to see an Extra Credits discussion about it someday
Extra credits is slowly metamorphising into less of a game design channel and more of a analysis channel.
...
I am overjoyed with this change.
I am so glad that you guys did this video!!! Prey did really made me think on that, and the choices I made at first but how I really acted. Although I thought that, if the Typhon have gotten so close to Earth, then a larger scale conflict was inevitable. Humanity as a whole needed to know the threat and how to deal with it, and yes, I did thought that Typhon based mods were the answer to uplift humanity. But another thought I had was "is this neural network a greater form of consciousness..? Are those assimilated by the Typhon really dead or do they get to be a part of something greater? Do we really have the right to destroy something that we really do not understand and that potentially can be better than our existence..? Wht if The Apex is really the ultimate state of being..?" And my choices were about that. I know maybe that was not the point of the game, but I did really enjoy that the game made me think about it. I really got invested, and I love when any form of art makes me feel that, and makes me think. I am telling everyone I know about Prey
Wow... This is one of the best epsisodes you have reilised
When these guys tell you you should play a game before watching a video, you know it's for a damn good reason. I ignored them on this aspect every time, and I always regret it.
They are now on my approved hype-trust list.
This was one of your better videos, imo. Well done!
I just want to say THESE type of episodes are my FAVORITE! I always wish for you guys to do more and more of them. I've bought Tale Tell's Walking dead and Spec's Op the Line from these sort of episodes. I like it when you dive deep into a game and analyze it.
Man I really wish I could play Prey. I love Psychological games. BUT with the first person/how the camera moves my vertigo would not allow me to play with out feeling sick.
I really enjoyed this episode!
This is why prey's story telling is absolutely brilliant. Unlike other game's that just dumb down morality to a simple "Kill bad science thing", it actually has the capacity to ask the difference between right and wrong.
The character's are all well written. Each one has a good sense of justification for what they're doing. No one person is ever presented as plainly "The bad guy". It's all just a question of what make's morality so complex. And ever question rarely has an easy answer.
no one is presented as the bad guy? Didn`t you met the "cook"?
Oh yes, he was mentally ill and incredibly unstable. But he was also tactically brilliant and managed to survive while everyone else around him was being mind controlled.
Comparatively speaking, he may have only killed a few people from the company. People who he believed was recklessly killing everyone for the sake of "Science". He wasn't entirely wrong or right. Although he was very, very ill.
As yes, deep philosophical games. There's way too few of those out there. Great video, I wasn't planning on playing Prey and kind of regret it now, thinking it was just another horror shooter.