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.

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?

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)

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.

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."

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.

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

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 :)

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 KZfaq 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 KZfaq'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!

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.

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.

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

FlarbaGlarb my bad, should've said "guys". I kinda forgot about the rest of the team because of Dan's tweets. Sorry...

Same (I expect to be ignored)

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.

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.

Yeah I think evolution has "taken care" of all the people with that kind of thinking.

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.

You definitely need to do more research before making such far-reaching decisions buddy. ... no consciousness or suffering? Come on son.

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.

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.

It was called "Neuroshock" in early development, I think that name suits it much better.

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.

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...

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 will just refuse to answer the question

I mean, the way you wrote this says that both will save the same amount of people but one is not certain, because the scientist MAY have a chance to save this amount later but it is the same amount of people you can save NOW. If the scientist had a chance to save MORE than the ones that can die to the bomb then it whould be a more interesing question. Be sure some will survive or let them die for a chance of saving more? And if the scientist fails in saving those people? Whouldnt that mean you killed the other ones for no reason at all?

Umbrella eye thing guy ,cool now changed it Thanks for the comment btw

Chuckman 2 4 2 ,brilliant!

That's an oddly contrived scenario.

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.

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.

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)