Prey guide: Endings - Polygon

Publish date: 2024-05-09

After the end of Prey’s "The Keys to the Kingdom" and its associated missions, you’re effectively at the end of the game. You’ve just got to decide how you want Prey to end. These choices take the form of the final two missions of Prey, "Perdition" and "A Mind Without Limits." These objectives are mutually exclusive — finishing one makes the other inaccessible — for reasons that will be clear (hint: one involves explosions).

Then again, this is Prey, where nothing is quite as it seems. Of course there's another ending. In this guide, we'll show you how to get them all.

Prey's multiple endings

At the end of Prey, the two objectives you have in your queue correspond (broadly) with a good versus bad ending. Or, rather, a save-the-research versus blow-it-all-up ending. Both of these objectives end in the same place — the Talos 1 Bridge — and you can complete all of the tasks except for the last one of each (push the button) without locking out the other. This means you can do all of the work of each without making that final decision.

There are three ways to end Prey. Your choice is about how you leave the game world.

Who Is December? > Escape Talos 1

Head back to Alex’s office in the center of the Arboretum. You have two ways to get to the escape pod. If you have hacking 4, you can use Alex’s computer to lower a bridge from the escape pod to the roof of Alex’s office. This is the easy way.

If you haven’t maxed out your hacking, or you just like a challenge, you can use your GLOO gun instead. Climb up to the roof, then look for the wooden shelter-things. (Google tells us these are called pergolas, but we’re pretty sure that’s a made-up word.) Get to the roof of the "pergolas" and turn toward the escape pod. Use your GLOO cannon to give yourself footholds along the metal girders.

When you get to the escape pod, use the EP01 keycard you found in Alex’s room to get inside. Turn around, then push the button to close the door. Then you can use the computer screen to launch the escape pod and just kind of … quit.

Obvious warning: There are spoilers in the video below.

This will earn you the Abandon Ship achievement/trophy. And it is technically an ending to the game, so … congratulations?

A Mind Without Limits (the "good" ending)

You, as Morgan, designed a supercharged Nullwave prototype that is capable of knocking out all of the typhons in and around Talos 1. Manufacturing, placing and triggering this device will bring you to the end of the game.

This is the least destructive ending, so we guess that makes it the "good" ending. It does kind of assume that all future containment protocols will be successful, so maybe this is better described as the "optimistic" ending.

Get Nullwave Device plan

You already have the plan — Alex gave it to you while he explained himself at the end of "The Keys to the Kingdom."

Fabricate the prototype Nullwave Device

Get to a fabricator — there’s the one at the GUTS entrance to the Arboretum if you’re in a hurry — and make it.

Place the prototype Nullwave Device

You can’t just put the Nullwave Device just anywhere. Alex will call when you have it in hand and tell you to place it at the "Heart of the Coral."

The Heart of the Coral is on the satellite you encountered (saw, but probably didn’t get close to) during "Detour." Head to the Talos 1 Lobby, then into Psychotronics. The Apex Typhon has its tendrils everywhere, so you’re going to have to be on your toes — the shotgun works wonders against the tendrils, by the way.

Head all the way back through Psychotronics, through the security checkpoint and the Clean Room where you picked up the psychoscope. Head through the decontamination airlock and take the grav lift up to the Psychotronics atrium.

The atrium has some tendrils, a phantom and a weaver waiting for you. If you’ve got the ammo, the Q-beam will tip this fight in your favor. Regardless of how you handle it, it’s in your interest to end this fight fast — you’re starting off outnumbered and it’s only going to get worse — so don’t be stingy with your charges or ammo.

Continue past Labs A and B, then turn into either the Materials Extraction or the Live Exam room. You’re not doing anything in these rooms. You’re just trying to get to the grav lock on the other side of the chamber. It’s the same room where you found your way into GUTS the first time.

Activate the prototype Nullwave Device

Once the Nullwave Transmitter is in place, Alex will call and invite you up to the bridge to trigger it. Go up to the Arboretum, and then make your way to the Talos 1 Bridge.

Hear out January and Alex while they make their cases. January has the console locked down, so if you’re committed to this ending, you’re going to have to destroy January — doing this will get you the "Suicide by Proxy" achievement/trophy.

Hit the button on the console to trigger the end of the game. (See "A Hidden Place" for what happens next.)

Perdition (the "bad" ending)

This objective (and ending) involves using the two Arming Keys — the one you manufactured and the one you got from Alex — to trigger the station’s self-destruct sequence. This is the explode-y ending.

Since it involves blowing everything up — include the majority of Talos 1’s crew — this is the "evil" or "bad" ending. There’s some subtlety here, though, in who escapes and how. (And, in Prey’s theme of philosophical exploration, it might actually be the better ending — depending on how you interpret some of the statements in "A Hidden Place.")

Access self-destruct consoles

Now that you have both Arming Keys, you can trigger the station to self-destruct. You’re going to be following the same route you took through Life Support in "Reboot."

Make your way down to Life Support. Take the grav lift down to the lower level, and then head into the Power Plant.

The hallway after the security station in the Power Plant has a nasty bundle of typhon tendrils on the right side, so you should either run through or use the monitoring room on your left to skip over it.

Keep going straight through the Coolant Chamber, past Lan Nguyen’s office (where you helped Mikhaila) and down the grav lift to the Reactor Core. Your goal is all the way at the bottom — use the grav lift in the left corner to get down, or just jump and use your suit to soften the fall.

Use the Arming Keys in the Power Plant

There is an access panel on the floor that will open up a hidden stairwell. Take the stairs down below the reactor, then follow the hall around to the back.

Place both of the Arming Keys into the slots and activate them. You’ll black out a little, but the game won’t be over yet — you haven’t triggered the self-destruct.

Trigger the station’s self-destruct

Alex will call you (like he does in "A Mind without Limits" and invite you to the bridge. Head up to the Arboretum and into the Talos 1 Bridge. This time, Alex and January are in the Captain’s Loft (where you completed "Shuttle Advent").

January and Alex will disagree about whether or not blowing up the station is a good idea — their fight will culminate in January knocking Alex out.

You have the opportunity to destroy January before he attacks Alex, but it’s up to you — it doesn’t really change anything. Alex will give you the opportunity to change your mind about blowing up the station, though.

If your mind is made up, use the console to activate (and confirm) the self-destruct sequence. If Alex is still conscious, he’ll be disappointed in you and refuse to leave the station. If January is still functional, he’ll be happy with you.

From here, you have a few choices about how to proceed, depending on which optional objectives you completed.

Perdition endings

So you’ve decided to blow up the station. That’s not the last choice you have to make, though. Just because the station is going to explode doesn’t mean you have to. You can, but you don’t have to.

Which of the three conclusions below are available to you depends on which optional objectives you completed earlier in the game. If you didn’t get the EP-01 keycard during "Who is December?," you won’t be able to get into the escape pod. If you killed Dahl, he won’t be there to pilot the shuttle.

Sacrifice yourself to spare Earth ("Perdition" ending)

This is the easiest option to complete — just do what January tells you. Take a seat and watch the credits roll.

Escape Talos 1 ("Who is December?" ending)

We wrote about this before as a way to get the "Abandon Ship" achievement/trophy. With the self-destruct countdown running, head toward Alex’s office. Since the gravity’s off, you don’t have to worry about the bridge or building yourself a GLOO walkway.

Head over to the escape pod and use the EP-01 keycard you got from Alex’s suite in Crew Quarters to get inside. From here, you can launch the escape pod and get away before Talos 1 blows up. (And Dahl’s shuttle will take off as well, saving everyone else.)

Get to the shuttle to escape Talos 1 ("Incapacitate Dahl" ending)

Dahl (and the other survivors) will call you from the Shuttle Bay. The shuttle’s ready to leave with Dahl behind the wheel, and you’re invited. If January is still functional, it’ll call the shuttle with your voice and shorten your countdown significantly.

You’ll have to hurry, but you can make it to the shuttle bay in time even if January cuts your time down. Head down to the Lobby and out into the Shuttle Bay. Everything you did during "The Repo Man" means you have a straight shot from the door to the shuttle.

Sit down in the co-pilot seat, and fly off into the sunset.

A Hidden Place

Well. Here we are. We’re not going to say much here, but there’s a choice to be made, so it feels like it should have a guide. Before we say anything, though, we’re going to write this in bold: END OF GAME SPOILERS AHEAD.

After the credits roll, you’ll wake up in "A Hidden Place." All of the choices you made (and optional objectives you completed) will be tallied up and laid out for you. Alex will give you one final choice to make. There’s nothing subtle about the choices — the result is exactly what it says. And we’re not going to tell you which to choose. Prey ends either way. It’s just a question of what kind of person you want to be.

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