Prey or Wildlands

Mmmm that's a tough one. Wildlands is MUCH bigger and more of an open world experience yet it can get boring after a while as they did a fantastic job of making a beautiful world filled with a lot of... well nothing. It's the same boring collectables over and over again. Lots of cool wildlife that has absolutely no game play value (it doesn't attack you, but you can attack it - although it doesn't give you anything so what's the point). The setting is great and there are a lot of missions, but again these are mostly pretty repetitive. You do get a lot of gameplay for your buck, but it's not very deep. The "cool" factor wears off after a while and you begin to get annoyed at all the wasted potential (especially with your AI buddies). They've finally added enough HUD customization and difficulty however to make the game a proper challenge (doesn't really need a "hardcore mod" in fact when I turn everything off and use the hardest difficulty it's too difficult for me - being basically one shot across the map by a hip firing SMG wielding crack head ooookay O.o )

On the flip side is Prey which is so incredibly deep but features only a single large location (a big space station). They thought of every little detail about every person living or dead in Prey and it really shows when you play through it and examine everything, but even though it's an FPS it's not really a shooter... more like a stealth-horror game where you spend a lot of time avoiding the creatures until you become powerful enough to turn the tables and then you are almost god like (if you invest all your points into the more powerful abilities) so it's an odd duck. I love it, but it's not going to last you very long (16-20 hours if you rush, double that if you are like me and sneak around looking at everything). The guns in it are very weak unless you invest a bunch of points in them. And honestly there are really only two proper "guns" - a pistol and a shotgun. The rest are sort of tool/weapon things that have different uses. This game is definitely NOT at all like DOOM. There is incentive and reason to replay it - they built in a bunch of different powers you can try and there are multiple "endings" but the game is more or the less the same every time so after a second playthrough it's a bit of a grind to play since you've already seen most everything the game has to offer.

Prey looks like a Far Cry game, but doesn't play much like one and GRW doesn't really look like a Far Cry game but in some ways (taking over outposts mostly) it does play like one. GRW story is weaker and it's gameplay is repetitive, but will last longer. Prey has an interesting, unique story, but it's a little short and kind of a one trick pony.

I like both games. I wish both would have gone a little farther. GRW has a lot of complaints and Prey just left me wanting more.

EDIT - if I had to describe them in one sentence it would be tough but I would probably say something like:

"Prey is Dishonored game in a space station full of creepy, over powered, inky black alien creatures."

"Ghost Recon Wildlands is a third person Far Cry game with not much of a story and limited collectables, but tons of outposts to clear"

Good to see you're still around Jimbo! Thanks Jeff - terrific review of both. I was toying with purchasing Wildlands for the longest time and now I don't have to for sure - but I'm still humming and hawing over Fallout 4! I just don't really want to leave Far Cry 4 though, and the fun of making maps!