Prototype is a game about a man who wakes up on a morgue slab, gets shot in the chest, and walks it off. That image — the autopsy table, the scientists fleeing, the body that will not stay dead — is the whole pitch. Radical Entertainment built a 2009 open-world action game around a shapeshifter named Alex Mercer, and the best thing about it is how completely it commits to the ugliness of that idea.
Trailer, via Prototype.
Alex Mercer rises from the slab
Alex Mercer (voiced by Barry Pepper) comes to in the basement of Gentek, a genetic engineering company in Manhattan. Two scientists were about to cut him open. He rises, they run, and military operatives gun them down in the street. Alex takes bullets to the chest and leaps a wall to safety.
He has no memory of his life before the slab. He does have shapeshifting, superhuman strength, speed, agility, durability, senses, endurance and weaponry. He can also “consume” people, absorbing them whole to take their memories, skills and appearance. It is a smart premise for an open-world game: the city is both a map and a menu.
From there, Alex hunts anyone tied to the conspiracy. Two factions stand in his way. The United States Marine Corps and Blackwatch, a Fort Detrick special forces unit built to fight biological warfare. And the Infected, monsters made by a virus called BLACKLIGHT that is overrunning Manhattan. Captain Robert Cross (voiced by Jeffrey Pierce) is the Blackwatch officer ordered to find and contain Alex.
Dana Mercer and the trap at Penn Station
Alex makes contact with his sister, Dana (voiced by Lake Bell). She helps him track targets and gets him into Gentek headquarters. Inside, he finds a young woman named Elizabeth Greene held in the building. Greene is a host for BLACKLIGHT. When she escapes, she unleashes it on Manhattan.
Dana then points Alex to Karen Parker, his ex-girlfriend. Karen agrees to help stop the virus, but she wants samples of it. She later leads Alex into a trap where Cross is waiting. The two fight, and Alex nearly wins, until Cross says “Penn Station.” The words trigger a flashback that leaves Alex dazed. He is injected with a parasite that threatens to kill him.
Dr. Ragland, a pathologist linked to Gentek, helps Alex remove the parasite and turn it into a weapon against Greene. It fails. Greene’s body rejects it instantly, and the rejected biomass becomes the Supreme Hunter, a monstrous being Alex kills.
Hope, Idaho and the virus that rewrote a woman
A contact fills in the history. In 1969 the government tested the virus’ predecessor in Hope, Idaho. It was designed to target predetermined races. It mutated into something far more deadly and infected the whole population.
Elizabeth Greene was the only survivor. An anomaly in her biology accepted the virus, rewriting her genetic code and that of her unborn son, codenamed PARIAH. Blackwatch liquidated the remaining population of Hope and kept Greene and PARIAH in captivity for research.
Alex also learns his own past. Blackwatch shut down the Gentek project over leaks and ordered all project personnel killed. Alex Mercer took a sample of BLACKLIGHT as “insurance.” Pinned down by Blackwatch in Penn Station, he shattered the vial in a last act of desperation and vengeance, releasing the virus before he was gunned down. The virus entered his bloodstream through the bullet holes and rebuilt his body at the cellular level. The monster is the man who let it out.
BLOODTOX and the bomb under the USS Ronald Reagan
The endgame is loud. Alex and the contact pump a biological agent called “BLOODTOX” underground to drive the virus above ground where it can be fought. Greene emerges encased in a towering monstrosity. Beaten, she falls from it in human form, and Alex consumes her.
Her memories reveal that General Randall, head of Blackwatch, plans to destroy Manhattan with a nuclear weapon. The contact turns out to be Cross. With his help, Alex infiltrates the USS Ronald Reagan to stop Randall. He consumes Randall. Then Cross reveals he is the Supreme Hunter, having taken Cross’ identity by consuming him. He attacks Alex and says that once Blackwatch leaves the New York Zone, they will no longer be hunting the infected, and that after he consumes Alex, he will be strong enough to survive the nuclear detonation.
Alex kills him and flies the weapon out over the Atlantic with a helicopter. It detonates and catches him in the blast. His remains float back to the city and regenerate after he consumes a crow.
During the credits, a US Senator tells the media the events in Manhattan were nuclear and biological terrorism, and promises retribution. The public credits the military with stopping the infection. Alex, looking back on what he learned about himself, says he has “become something less than human, but also something more.” After the credits, Manhattan is slowly recovering and the virus is nearly gone. Alex stands on the Reuters Building in Times Square and says his work is almost done.
The camera and the lock-on are the tax you pay
The consumption mechanic is the game’s real idea, and it holds up. Taking a body to take a face, a memory, a skill makes stealth, combat and story the same act. Few open-world games of that era had a hook that clean.
The movement does the rest. Alex runs up the side of a skyscraper and clears a street in a bound. Manhattan becomes a climbing frame, and the game is at its best when you are using it as one. The Infected give you something to hit, and Blackwatch gives you something to fear.
The problems are the ones the game never solved. The camera fights you in tight spaces, and the lock-on is unreliable when a fight turns into a crowd. The scenery is gray and repetitive, a city of identical blocks. Several reviewers at the time compared it to Infamous, which arrived about a month earlier. That comparison was fair then and it is fair now: Infamous had the cleaner controls and the better-looking city. Prototype had the meaner premise and the better monster.
Alex Mercer is his own outbreak
Strip out the combat and Prototype is a horror story about a man who is his own outbreak. The morgue, the bullet holes, the vial in Penn Station: the game connects all of it. Alex does not save Manhattan so much as clean up after himself. The Senator’s press conference and the public’s wrong version of events land because the game has earned them.
The game was well received on release, with praise for its originality, storytelling and combat, and criticism for its control scheme and scenery. That split is accurate. The controls are the tax you pay for the power.
This is a 7.7 out of 10. The story, the consumption mechanic and the movement carry it. The camera, the lock-on and the flat gray city hold it back. It is worth playing for the premise alone.
The numbers
- Title: Prototype (stylized as [PROTOTYPE])
- Released: June 2009
- Developer: Radical Entertainment
- Publisher: Activision
- Platforms: PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, PC (Microsoft Windows), Xbox 360, Xbox One
- Genres: Platform, Hack and slash/Beat ’em up, Adventure
- Themes: Action, Horror, Survival, Stealth, Sandbox, Open world
- Re-release: Prototype Biohazard Bundle, July 2015, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One
- Separate versions of the two games: August 2015
- Modes: Single player
- Perspective: Third person
- Score: 7.7 of 10
Release schedule
| Date | Release |
|---|---|
| June 2009 | Prototype launches on PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and Microsoft Windows |
| July 2015 | Prototype Biohazard Bundle re-released on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One |
| August 2015 | Separate versions of Prototype and its sequel become available |
The score is 7.7 of 10.
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