Skip to main content

You can play the first hour of ‘Prey’ for free starting April 27

Prey Demo – Play the Opening Hour
Arkane Studios’ highly anticipated reboot of Prey is the big May game release, but it turns out players will be able to get their hands on the first hour of the game a week early. Bethesda, Prey‘s publisher, announced “Prey Demo: Opening Hour,” set to arrive for free on April 27 for both PlayStation 4 and Xbox One users.

Prey lets you take hold of Morgan Yu, whose job is to stop an alien invasion from destroying humanity. The narrative gradually builds up to those inevitable clashes but in the first hour, you’re just a man or woman trying to make it through your first day at a new job.

We played the first hour of the game for a couple months ago in our preview, remarking that it “sets the stage for a System Shock 2-style mystery.”

At the outset, Alex Yu, Morgan’s brother, is testing out the newly implanted “neuromod” on Morgan. Things quickly veer off course from there, as Morgan witnesses the brutal killing of a scientist. Darkness engulfs Morgan, and then he wakes up again in a Groundhog Day-esque setup. Morgan quickly realizes that he is living in a lie, that he is already on the Talos 1 station and it is overrun by deceptive aliens called Mimics. Throughout the first hour, players will soon realize that the Mimics have the means to transform into benign objects, which turns simple interactions into possible alien encounters. All the while, a mysterious voice called January provides insight to Morgan through a radio.

Bear in mind, progress made in the demo will not be accessible in the full game, so you will have to replay the first hour at launch. Also, PC users will not get to participate in the April 27 demo, as it is exclusive to consoles.

Prey launches on May 5 for PS4, Xbox One, and PC.

Editors' Recommendations

Steven Petite
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Steven is a writer from Northeast Ohio currently based in Louisiana. He writes about video games and books, and consumes…
Volgarr the Viking 2 will take you back to your Ghosts ‘n Goblins days
A viking slashes a tree in Volgarr the Viking 2.

Developer Digital Eclipse is working on a surprising project: Volgarr the Viking 2. The 2D retro sequel will launch on August 6 for PlayStation 4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch, and PC.

The news is an out of left field reveal. The first Volgarr the Viking game released in 2013 and was made as an ode to 1080s classics like Ghosts 'n Goblins. Despite being a small release, it sold over 1 million copies over the past decade. As revealed during today's Guerrilla Collective stream, the series is coming back with a new sequel by Digital Eclipse, the team behind this year's Llamasoft: The Jeff Minter Story.

Read more
3 Days of Play PS Plus games to try this weekend (June 7-9)
Key art for Streets of Rage 4.

June 2024 is shaping up to be a pretty great month for PlayStation players. Not only are we coming off an entertaining State of Play showcase, but a new Days of Play initiative surrounding all the video game showcases this month is bringing a lot of new PS Plus additions with it. Many of those games hit PS Plus this week, and three in particular stand out to us.

For owners of Sony's oft-neglected PlayStation VR2, the first game is one of its rare exclusives that take full advantage of the headset's eye-tracking by seeing how often players blink. The next is a new PS Plus Essential game that's a revival of Sega's classic beat-'em-up series for the modern gaming era. Finally, the last title is an atmospheric and eerie fishing game that should entice fans of Lovecraftian horror.
Before Your Eyes

Read more
3 first-party Xbox Game Pass games to try this weekend (June 7-9)
Gears 5 Kait Hero Close Up

Microsoft will hold an Xbox Games Showcase and Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 Direct. this Sunday. These shows will provide a much better idea of what to expect from Xbox over the course of the next year or two. That's really needed right now, as Microsoft has struggled to keep online discussions around Xbox positive as it went multiplatform with some games, laid off thousands of developers, and outright shut down the developers of Hi-Fi Rush and Redfall. Based on leaks and my personal expectations for the showcase, there are three games you can play on Xbox Game Pass this weekend to prepare for the event.

The first is the latest first-person shooter in a long-running series by id Software that might be getting a medieval-set spinoff. After that, we have the fifth entry in a sci-fi Xbox series that still looks fantastic on Xbox Series X/S even though it came out in 2019. Finally, you can prepare for Avowed with the latest RPG from Obsidian Entertainment, a satirical sci-fi game where player choice is critical.
Doom Eternal

Read more