The new “Prey” mode in World of Warcraft is going to be tough. So tough that the developers even say that you might want to log out.
In a few days, World of Warcraft Midnight will start, bringing a variety of new features. One of them is the Prey System, which is optional and aims to bring new excitement into the questing routine. Depending on the difficulty, this could lead to frustrating experiences or, according to WoW developer Kim Flack, you might even want to log out.
What is the Prey System? The Prey System, simply referred to as “Prey” in German, is an additional game mode that you can sign up for in Silvermoon. The system ensures that while playing in the open world – for instance, during events, experiencing the story, or completing world quests – you will continuously find different clues to your target that you need to eliminate.
The catch: The target isn’t too keen on this and will attack you from time to time – and this can happen at any moment. It doesn’t matter if you’re reading a quest text, fighting an elite opponent, or just “minimizing the game for a moment” to watch a video on YouTube.
Depending on the difficulty, this can lead to your character dying within seconds, and you becoming the prey.
Being afk for a moment
can already be deadly
What do the WoW developers say about this? In an interview with PCGamer, game designer Kim Flak talked about the mode and how he was surprised by the fans’ reactions.
I was a bit concerned, […] that players would see this [Prey] as moments of disruption and that it might feel a bit unfair. Like ‘I pulled this mob, and I would have survived if this guy hadn’t ambushed me!’ But basically, the players reacted more like: ‘I enjoy being ambushed. I like this experience. It’s fun, it’s surprising, and it’s a moment where I have to suddenly think differently about how to deal with it.
This really made me happy because I hoped the player base would enjoy the surprise of the ambushes, and most of them did.
These ambushes can only occur when you are already engaged in a fight – at least on the two lower difficulty levels. However, this changes as soon you are on “Nightmare” mode. Then the ambushes become brutally hard and do not hesitate to attack you in particularly vulnerable moments:
The Nightmare mode is basically the “Don’t go afk” mode. If you need to go afk, then you probably want to return to a safe area. You might even want to log out.
Whether and how much you enjoy the Prey System, you can try for yourself in a few days – because by the end of this week, Midnight will launch for all pre-order customers of the Epic Edition in Early Access. Until then, you should definitely take care of these 5 things to ensure a smooth start into the new addon.
