Weapons

Rifle

The Rifle’s weak, but you’ve got plenty of ammo for it, so feel free to use it liberally when Hunters are about.

The Rifle is the earliest alien weapon that you’ll possess. It has a large supply of ammo, and all enemy Hunters will drop it as well, making ammo easy to find. While it doesn’t possess much firepower, it’ll be more than enough to deal with the weaker enemies that you encounter in your path, such as Hunters and Fodder. If you fire for too long, though, you’ll choke the weapon and have to wait a moment for it to reload with new ammo.

The Rifle’s secondary firing mode will flip it to sniper mode, allowing you to snipe away at distant enemies. This takes up quite a bit more ammo than does the normal firing mode, but is handy for dealing with enemy Hunter snipers. In point of fact, that’s about all you’ll ever need to use it for; most other enemies will move too quickly for this mode of fire to be effective against them.

Note that if you run out of ammo for the Rifle, it will slowly regenerate ammo up to a set amount, making it useful for shooting organic explosives, gravity switches, and the like.

Crawler

Crawlers are essentially alien grenades, which is odd, considering they’re crawling all over the ship. Sounds like a good idea to us. Anyway, you’ll pick these guys up when you walk over them, and will be able to use them as you like from then after.

There are two firing modes for the Crawler, which you can cycle through by pressing the alternate fire button. If the Crawler is legs-down on your hand, it will act like a proximity mine; if you throw it on a spot, it’ll stay there until an enemy (or you) walk past, at which time it’ll explode. If it’s legs-up, then it’ll detonate a few seconds after it hits the ground. Pretty standard, really.

Leech Gun

"This will rock some ****!" As eloquently as Tommy puts it, who are we to disagree? The Leech Gun possesses only one firing mode; its alternate fire will simply suck in energy from Leech Stations that are scattered around the Sphere. You won’t find any ammo anywhere else, so keep an eye out for Leech Stations.

The energy ammo for the Leech Gun makes it arguably the most powerful weapon in the game.

There are four types of ammo for the Leech Gun. The first you’ll encounter is plasma ammo, which sends out rapid bursts of plasma energy towards your enemies. It’s not very accurate, but it’s powerful enough to rapidly take down Hunters and other weaker enemies. Alternately, you can also access cold ammo, which will freeze your targets to death a bit more rapidly. You have to be right on top of your foes to use this ammo, though, and you can’t store very much of it.

Later in the game, you’ll gain access to lightning ammo, which essentially converts the weapon into a zoomless sniper rifle or railgun. These shots are going to kill almost anything in just one or two hits, but you can only store six or so shots for it, so aim carefully.

Lastly, in the last couple of levels of the game, you’ll obtain pure energy ammo. This acts like a lightning gun from Quake. You’re going to discharge a huge amount of energy in a constant beam in front of you. It’s so powerful that you’ll actually be moved backwards by the force of the blast! If you can keep it focused on your enemy, though, you’ll be able to kill them with a minimum of trouble.

The Auto Cannon’s nailgun-esque firing will make it ideal for taking down distant enemies.

Auto Cannon

The Auto Cannon is first obtained when you slice it off the arm of a Centurion, the first boss in the game. It’s a powerful nailgun/grenade launcher that has plenty of ammo scattered around. It’s mostly useful for dealing with Hunters, as they’ll fall quickly to either firing mode. Overall, a powerful weapon for constant use. Keep in mind that Harvesters will capture the grenades from this weapon in their goop shield, making this somewhat less useful when you start encountering large numbers of Harvesters late in the game.

Acid Gun

This is Prey’s version of a shotgun. The Acid Gun fires a fusillade of acid at anything in front of you, but the shot will spread out rapidly, meaning that you’ll have to be firing from pretty close range in order to make maximum use of your ammo. Still, if you’re on foot (as opposed to being in a vehicle), you’ll usually have enemies close at hand, so this is going to be a useful weapon to wield against organic foes like the Hunter and Harvester.

The secondary fire here will launch the Acid Gun’s current ammo cartridge at an enemy all in one go. It’s powerful, sure, but will quite often miss your target, especially when attempting to hit something that moves about or that can dodge, like a Harvester. When you do miss, it’ll be a few seconds before you can fire again. This mode of fire is best used on bulky enemies that can’t dodge very well, like Centurions or the upgraded Hound you encounter near the end of the game.

Crawler Launcher

The Launcher is going to be the last weapon you find in your travels; you’ll cut it out of the hand of a dead Harvester the first time you see them. And then it’ll be yours to do with as you will. It’s an interesting weapon, combining a rocket launcher with a portable personal shield.

The primary fire here shouldn’t be too difficult to deal with; it’s a rocket launcher that fires rockets that move quite rapidly. You’ll be able to easily kill Hunters with these rockets, but faster-moving enemies, such as most enemies, will be able to dodge the rockets before they impact, making it less useful against them, unless you’re right up close to them, in which case you’ll probably wind up taking a bunch of damage yourself. Also note that, like the Auto Cannon’s grenades, these rockets will be rendered inert by Harvesters. Curses! Foiled again! Apart from that, you can profitably use them on bigger enemies like Centurions.

The secondary fire mode is interesting; it’ll disperse a gel-like substance into the air in front of you that will temporarily prevent both you and your opponents from firing through it. Useful when you know that an opponent is charging up a grenade or a rocket at you, but since it prevents you from firing back, it won’t often be super-useful in single-player mode. In multiplayer, you may be able to use this to temporarily plug up a doorway or save yourself while running towards some health, but hey - if you’ve got a rocket launcher you’ll probably want to just use it to, you know, launch rockets.