Prey 2 Special Edition Ideas

I’ve always been a collector of sorts.  At first, it was bottle caps in 3rd grade, then onto rocks, stamps, and coins.  In high school and college it was comic books.  Moving around frequently has thankfully prevented me from amassing too much clutter.  And, I no longer feel compelled to cover my work desk with action figures or other geek squad knick-knacks, other than a few Lego projects.

The one thing I hadn’t tried was collecting limited editions for video games… despite the fact I work in the game industry!  A little while ago I scratched that itch by scooping up a handful of special editions.  I was mainly interested in ones that supplemented the game with more game fiction such as a world map or offered other external games such as a deck of cards or dice.

Collections I forked over cash for:

• Dead Rising 2: High Stakes Edition (high quality!)
• Dead Space 2: Collector’s Edition
• Diablo III: Collector’s Edition
• Duke Nukem Forever: Balls of Steel Edition (the worst)
• Fable III: Limited Collector’s Edition
• Fallout New Vegas: Collector’s Edition
• Red Dead Redemption
• The Witcher 2: Collector’s Edition (the best)

All of the proposals featured three items:

• The Prey 2 game
• A Prey 2 comic
• In-Game items

The Prey 2 comic was a free 1st issue to a 4-issue anthology.  Each issue involved four short stories featuring different characters, writers, and artists — similar to Dark Horse Presents.  Some ideas involved what happened to Tommy between the first Prey and Prey 2, a day in the life of a Central City citizen, and Killian struggling with his isolation and outcast status.  One of the stories would include the location of a secret item found in the game, giving readers another perk for purchasing a special edition.

Some of the In-Game items required players to track down the bonus item as a mission.  When Red Dead Redemption did this I was at first frustrated having to work for something I already paid for.  To contrast that, Batman: Arkham City released a bunch of character skins with immediate access to all of them.  Suddenly there was little value enjoying each one equally.  It would have been far more rewarding if each costume involved a small mission to unlock them so I could at least find a reason to try the latest one as I tracked down the next.  More gameplay is always better, no matter how simple it might be!

Onto the proposals…

A-Pack

One of the things Best Buy is known for music, so I made this edition feature Prey 2’s soundtrack.

G-Pack

Gamestop always has some odd fringe accessories whenever I visit a store.  Killian’s Visor became a great choice for Gamestop’s crowd.  After a lot of searching, I found a company that produced something plausible and had a sample sent to me. Chris Rhinehart had a cool idea if worn, they could help or enhance gameplay. This might boil down to contrasting the lens color against a key color in the gameworld. Perhaps it’d be a way to quickly recognize climbing edges or highlight semi-hidden objects.

H-Pack

Amazon’s where I get most of my Collector Editions since they add an additional $5 credit towards your next game purchase. Indulging the things I like best in special editions, I added a fold out map of Central City’s Bowery featuring adverts and propaganda images you’d find throughout the district. The Bowery Dice satisfied that need for an external game. They were intended to be tied to a mini-game you’d encounter while playing Prey 2.

M-Pack

I was surprised to find Walmart has their share of exclusive editions. The obvious item to include is an article of clothing. A t-shirt was too uninspiring whereas as knit cap to match Killian’s seemed like the perfect choice!

Ultimate Edition

This version collected everything together with a suggested retail price of $100.