Prey players have apparently discovered a save-corrupting bug in the PC version that renders the new sci-fi game unplayable. Those of us at Kotaku who are playing Prey haven’t run into this one, but you should be aware nonetheless.
The most high-profile report comes from IGN, whose reviewer enjoyed Prey but gave it a 4/10 because of the bug, which prevented him from completing the game. (Yes, this is yet another sign that review scores are arbitrary and meaningless, but that’s beside the point.) Writes reviewer Dan Stapleton:
Everything came to a screeching halt when, after 34 hours played, all my recent saves suddenly became corrupted, destroying five hours of progress. I grudgingly went back to the most recent working save, but soon ran into a different but equally awful problem: every time I tried to leave the cargo bay and load a new zone, Prey crashed to desktop. I contacted the developers for help, and Arkane provided me with a completely new save file around the same spot. But, after a few more hours of play, that save also became corrupted and crash-prone. That game-ending tragedy means I have to advise strongly against playing Prey on PC. Bethesda says they’re hoping for a fix by the end of the week, but there are no guarantees.
Some Prey players have also reported the bug on Steam forums, social media, and so on. Kotaku’s Riley MacLeod and Kirk Hamilton are both playing on PC—Riley has finished, and Kirk is pretty far—and neither has run into anything like this. I’m playing on PS4 and have also had no problems with major bugs.
Update (12:44pm): As some readers pointed out shortly after this article went live, Bethesda has issued a beta patch on Steam that the publisher says fixes this bug. (“Fix to prevent Save games from becoming corrupted. Fix also returns corrupted Save games to uncorrupted state.”)
If you’ve run into the bug and were able to fix it with this patch—or weren’t able to fix it with this patch—let us know.