Prototype™

peak childhood game

One of the most iconic games... Old but gold... Sacred treasure... One of the pillars of skill tree rpg genre

after a few guides here on steam, i was able to get this game working again through the use of a Nexus mod! the nostalgia i have from this game is insane. This was one of the very first games i ever played on a PC and i enjoyed it then, and enjoy it now.

the military personnel dont bat an eye at all if you get into a tank disguised as one of them and start mowing down cars and civilians... the american law enforcement system at its finest

Unrated, great game, good story, insane gameplay for the time this was made, you can destroy alot also insane how many NPC's there are in this game, but I don't like what they done to main character in Prototype 2 also Alex Merce was way cooler

Great classic game with a lot of really good cinematic action gameplay, great story, surprisingly excellent voice acting (particularly Alex mercers VA and in the tank trailing mission towards the very end) and graphics that hold up well to this day 17 years later.

I have to say though, this game has some of the most annoying mechanics i have ever experienced in a game in a long time. Some of this game's bosses and levels are frustratingly hard. By hard I don't mean dark souls hard where you are tested on your skill, patience or timing. I mean completely bs mechanics hard. Like unfair stupid bs that was obviously only incorporated into the game to artificially inflate the difficulty, for no apparent reason mind you. I was very close to quitting this game multiple times because of this issue, particularly fighting Elizabeth Green. That was a genuinely terrible experience. She's not even a hard boss, the fight is just cancer.

Aside from that though, everything else is really done well and holds up even to todays standards. I wish more games innovated and tried new things the way this one did in narrative and gameplay. This title will always have a special place in my heart for how good it was and still is, and because of that i recommend it.

7.9/10

Please update for the new gen PC can play it Normally

This is an awesome game I love this game way more than the second one it is enjoyable for al the right reasons

recommended to play even if this is an old game

The game crashes and is unplayable on modern computers. Save your money

the Gameplay is fun and easy to learn. There is thinking involved as well, not just button mashing...

This game cannot be played on modern hardware without a mod from nexus to fix it

Still one of the greatest titles I've ever played

Hulk Ultimate Destruction on steroids

if it dont work then go into task maneger and then go to steam.exe turn cpu to 3 and it will work and good game it is fun

When I was a kid I played Prototype 2, never the first one. I recently downloaded this one and even though the story is just okay, the game play more than makes up for it. I had a lot of fun! When I was younger, my PC would only run these games at around 20 or 30 FPS. It was fun to run it properly this time around lol. Also, since I saw so many people complain about the game crashing, I downloaded the prototype fix mod from nexus mods before running the game and I had no issues at all. Highly recommend!

a pretty fun carnage game

i like this game,its really good ,this game also fun,the game is really brutal since i wass little i was not allowed to play this game it's a shame. if you play this game,you only use 4 cpu i hope get a new update.

cool guy with powers makes goverment die

NOTE: The game does not work on modern hardware due to engine issues hardcoded in. You will need to aquire a mod to get the game to function on modern hardware!
A link to the community fix can be found here; https://www.nexusmods.com/prototype/mods/52
Since Activision is highly unlikely to fix it. There is a fix for Prototype 2 linked in the mod as well and vice versa.

This is my absolute favorite game of all time. I remember picking it up at a rental store (when those were a thing) back in 2010 when I was staying the weekend at a friends house. I didn't sleep that night. I just kept playing this game throughout the entire night and having an absolute blast. Then when I had a Xbox 360 at my own house, I picked the game up again. I probably have done about 21 playthroughs of this game at this point.

The OST is feckin' phenominal. The gameplay is extremely fun, overtly violent and chaotic. And they put in so many secret little details that you just don't get in games anymore these days. The graphics definitely show their age by now, even then in 2009 when it came out they were a bit dated. But the game was amazing none the less. The Story is also very intriguing, making most of the lore and exposition optional with the introduction of the "Web of Intrigue" utilizing the gameplay loop of "Consuming" enemies and living creatures to assume their shapes, memories, and even heal from consuming them.
Need to escape from military pursuit? Shapeshift your body to disguise yourself as someone else when out of sight. Or if you're feeling a little bloodlusty, shapeshift your limbs into claws, hammerfists, a whip, boost your muscle mass, or even a giant sword arm! (As depicted in the cover art.) About to die and can't wait for natural regeneration to do the job for you? Grab someone and consume them for a big chunk of healing. Truly a game of the time, and to this day, no game gives me that power fantasy itch like this game has. My ABSOLUTE FAVORITE game of all time! :D

Prototype is one of those rare games that, once you fix a few technical issues, feels absolutely incredible to play. No other game lets you absorb someone in the most brutal way, steal their identity, and sprint up skyscrapers like a schizophrenic Spider Man. At first, my game kept crashing and was locked to an ancient monitor resolution, but after grabbing a fix from NexusMods, it ran perfectly. Pure chaos, pure fun, unforgettable. If you haven’t played it yet, you are seriously missing out.

bro i like this game it makes me feel powerful the only other person that does that is max hitchens as he is a runt so i like this game and so should you base bic by you are the goo man

I got it on sale but sadly the game simply doesn't work. A game from 2009 shouldn't need me to jump through 30 hoops to play it it should be ready to play as soon as I buy and download it. I may have done the process the wrong way but I did follow the instructions and it still crashed after loading a new game. IF they ever decide to fix the game properly I will be buying it again but currently it is unplayable for me at least.

Prototype is one of those games that leaves a lasting impression, not just because of its intense action and chaotic open-world game-play, but because of the memories tied to it. I used to secretly play it on my brother's laptop whenever he was away, and every time I launched it, it felt like stepping into a world of unstoppable power and gritty freedom.

The game-play is pure mayhem in the best way possible. As Alex Mercer, you tear through the streets of New York City with shape-shifting powers, scaling buildings, hijacking tanks, and unleashing brutal attacks on enemies. It’s an open-world sandbox that encourages creativity through destruction, letting you play as the ultimate anti-hero with no limits. The movement system is especially satisfying, running up skyscrapers, gliding through the air, and smashing down with incredible force never gets old.

Visually, it captures the dark and gritty tone perfectly. The streets are chaotic, filled with infected creatures, military patrols, and civilians reacting to the madness. The sound design, from the deep roars of your powers to the crumbling city-scape, helps bring the dystopian atmosphere to life. And while it may show its age in places, the overall experience still holds strong.

What makes Prototype truly special for me, though, are the memories. Those quiet hours sneaking in playtime on my brother’s laptop, discovering new abilities, and just getting lost in the game’s raw energy, it’s something I’ll always hold onto. Unfortunately, I never got to experience Prototype 2 because of regional restrictions. It’s really disappointing, as I would’ve loved to continue the story and dive back into that world. I still hope one day it becomes available without region locks.

In conclusion, Prototype is a wild ride through a dark, chaotic city with a character who feels truly powerful. For anyone who loves open-world action games with a twist, it's a must-play. And for me, it’s a piece of gaming nostalgia I’ll never forget. With the rumors of Prototype 3 coming around, I am also excited about that.

this game is actually amazing its alot like infamous second son game or any of the infamous series 100% reccomend

Ok... lets talk Prototype for a bit:

Yes, we need Prototype 3
No, this game does not work well on modern PCs
Yes, there is a solve: use this 3 min youtube video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P4cmh5eX38w) as I did and enjoy 4k 120 fps (or higher) on your comp
My PC: RTX 3080 10 GB, 5900x cpu, samsung SSD, Windows 10 OS

OK - back to the game -
My nostalgia glasses are STRONG with this one. I loved this game as a young teen: it is dark, brutal, gory, kinda just evil and a bad time, but that makes it a great time. They committed to the setting: BIOHAZARD, INFECTION, EPIDEMIC, VIRUS OVER USE OF MILITARY JARGON, EVIL MILITARY JERKS, ASSHOLES EVERYWHERE, SCIENCE EXPERIMENTS - all really good stuff.

Alex Mercer is a truly awesome protagonist (anti hero? antagonist? idk, your call). And his VO is awesome. The story has a great mystery and decent enough pacing. The twist is great (what Alex did or was forced to do) though many redditors will argue this. I dig it and vibe Alex. The traversal/locomotion is spot on. The flips and tricks are slick. Combat leaves much to be desired but has good bones and really cool weapon designs (transformations). The consumption mechanics are gruesome and satisfying as well (both stealth and normal). The military weapons and vehicles are... serviceable. The "skill tree" is large and fun to fill out, opening many new pathways for, well, everything in the game.

BUT man are there some obtuse and s****y mission design choices here. It is clearly of its time. Thank god they give some generous checkpoints for the main ones. The side missions ramp up into this super annoying, never ending, sometimes time limited BS that 70% through I just said F it no need for 100%. The web of intrigue, while a unique idea and fun to tackle and has some really interesting bits of lore, like REALLY interesting to me - just NEVER ENDS (I think it is 100 consumption to 100%) WOOF. People you need to interact with just die sometimes because the city is a f****n war-zone, duh. But, like, that sucks and is tedious.

I wanted to come back and think this game was a 10/10, but I will give it an 8/10, and even then, without the nostalgia I can see some frustrated players viewing this as a 6 or 7. But man was this ahead of its time in so many aspects and I would love to see life back in this franchise with Alex and hell, even James Heller (but let me play Alex as MC). From what I can tell - Prototype 2 is fixing many of the above issues for me ESPECIALLY combat feels WAY better (but currently am only a few hours in and have not played since it came out originally - also same fixes above seem to work for Prototype 2).

Amazing game for its time.

Cool concept but some things were poorly executed.

Finally beat it after 15+ years.

Man oh man does this game suck at the end though.
It gets so difficult and frustrating. Sadly.

The graphics could use an update but otherwise awesome game, loved it on xbox many moons ago lol, and still enjoying it as I replay through.

game always crashed on loading screen and max resolution is 1280p

Tive que pedir reembolso. Não sei porquê motivo, mas o jogo não está rodando para mim, mesmo a máquina tendo mais capacidade do que os requisitos recomendados. Tentei algumas soluções do suporte e de dicas do YT. Uma pena, tenho boas recordações desse game de quando jogava há muitos anos.

Game crashes upon playing the game, You can fix this with a mod, but this should not have to be the case.

If you are getting this game today, Be sure to get the crash fix mod, It's a simple "Install, Unzip The Folder, Drop Contents in the Game Directory" If you are looking for it it's here https://www.nexusmods.com/prototype/mods/52?tab=description after that I was able to free roam the city and look around no issues.

PC port was honestly a little janky but still playable. I never played this when it came out but it has aged well in my opinion, I kept forgetting this is 15 YEARS OLD. Gameplay was fun and it FEELS fun despite you becoming rather overpowered. Wanna destroy a tank in one hit? Cannonball into a helicopter to make it explode? Heck, just steal the chopper and make it everyone else's problem? My favorite ability however was the one where you can accuse random military guys as being you in disguise and watch the shots fly.
Story was alright. Main plot did the job and background lore was pretty interesting. Definitely edgy. But more like 90's-2000's comic book edgy, which fits given this is pretty close to a Venom game.
Played entirely on Steam Deck, unsure if it would have less jank than Windows.
Overall, I'd give it 8 eaten soldiers out of 10!

Stands the test of time and feel like a true anti-hero. Few games attain the ability to feel like a complete bad a** and this game hits it head-on. Having fun with this 16 year old game.

I played this to the end on pc when it first came out. I have not played this for over 13 years. Now I'm playing on an oled steam deck.Game started and runs perfect.I forgot how perfect the movement system in this game is.You can run up or over anything, air dash and glide.Combat is also excellent and gets better as you progress in the story. This game should have been called "Power Fantasy Simulator." You are pretty much Venom,Spider-man and Batman combined. 10/10

Nothing much to say about this underappreciated gem of a game. Simply brilliant piece of entertainment.

Great game, way ahead of its time, I went back to play it again but the game will not run if your CPU has more than 4 cores.

With infamous 1 being my favorite video game of all time I was heavily excited to test this game out and damn I wasn't disappointed this is fantastic and 100% worth buying

Doesn't run on modern computers

I think about how cool Alex Mercer is on a near weekly basis. This is perhaps my favorite videogame.

A very underrated game from xbox 360, a must play.

This is the kind of game that you would have played when you were thirteen years old, thinking this is what "adult video games" looked like.

Prototype is a decent video game for somebody who wants to destroy anything they want in a sandbox. Stealth isn't required for most of the game (if not all of it), you can get good at all of the skills and powers it gives you, and it's fantastic background fodder to play whenever you want to talk it up with your friends. As sandbox games usually go, there's also a lot of funny stuff you can do with your own creativity.

One of the reasons why I don't recommend Prototype is because it hasn't aged very well. Having played games such as Spider-Man: Web of Shadows, Insomniac's Spider-Man, and InFamous: Second Son several times before Prototype, there are simply better "sandbox superhero" games out there for anybody to play. Not only that, but you can get good at all of them and pull off crazier stunts than you can in this game. It's to a point where one of the only reasons you'd choose to play this game over the others is because Web of Shadows and Second Son aren't on Steam as of me making this review. Even Web of Shadows has a similar "so edgy that it hurts" story that you'll look back on in retrospective and laugh at.

Within a vacuum, though, one of Prototype's biggest flaws is its emphasis on vehicle sections. You want to play as the badass who can morph his body into organic weaponry. You know, the prototype? So, why exactly am I driving around in vehicles that I need to keep undamaged or else I restart the mission? It's not easy, but it's not a fun kind of difficulty, considering the controls on vehicles such as helicopters is sluggish and annoying, which is the opposite of what you need when you're about to be blown out of the sky in a matter of seconds. Prototype also lacks any kind of way to allow your character to counter or resist sources of damage that will fling you all over the place. Explosions and Super Soldiers have the power to knock you back and interrupt anything you're doing, which is frustrating when they also relentlessly pursue you. This can make healing a chore, and adds ridiculous length onto missions as simple as "destroy this thing."

By far the biggest flaw of the game, though, is its boss battles. They range from mediocre to bad, and they continuously get worse as the game goes on. The final two boss battles are genuinely up there with some of the worst boss battles I have ever personally played through in video game history. Without spoiling the game, the average player would think the second-to-last boss battle is the final boss, but the game continues. The actual final boss is a previous boss that has simply been recycled. The only addition is a time limit, which causes more difficulty than the boss itself. What a way to end the game.

You should get this on a deep sale to mess around in just to see what kind of game it's like. However, you shouldn't take it very seriously. It's aged like milk, and the only real value it has now is nostalgia if you played it ten to fifteen years ago.

Hate zombies. Still like this game, although I suppose one could argue the word 'zombie' is not actually applied.
Upsides: Fascinating story and interesting characters.
Downsides: Stupid, somewhat immersion-breaking respawn time that makes a lot of the fighting particularly irritating. The story is worth the aggravation, but the aggravation does exist.
Note: Lots of tactics help with the more irritating fights. Not so much strategy, but lots of tactics - and if you can get your hands on a helicopter or get good with an assault rifle, those especially irritating detectors are much easier to take out. Sniping from rooftops works great. (The reason it's immersion-breaking: named in-game as new tech, they still get the literal hundreds I destroy every game-day and the thousands of troops, plus untold military vehicles of both ground and air variety - are still replaced many, many times before the game-day is out. Would probably be TOO easy if they stayed gone for a realistic period of time, but couldn't there be a happy medium of maybe three or four times a day?)

This game is the equivalent of buying a Ferrari, but it's only allowed to go 5mph on a guided rail system around your neighborhood.

The only way I was able to play this was on my Steam Deck. I don't understand how Activision, let alone Valve can even sell this when you literally have to go into your files and set up your computer in a way to even be able to run it. Then after you're done running it you have to go back into your files to set your PC back to normal or you wont be able to play anything else.

Take this off the store page or fix it.

i need refund because i can't stare game

A GOOD CLASSIC GAME I LOVED THIS GAME WHEN I WAS A KID BUT NOW I LOVE THIS GAME MORE THAN BEFORE

Note to Self: Remember to go to Task Manager>Details, right-click on steam.exe, Set Affinity, then only select 4 cores to use while you are wanting to play Prototype. Good game, couple of instances of jank. Very doable if you keep moving. Until fixed for modern PCs, I don't recommend.

Make sure you get the most popular mod on nexus.com to fix it from crashing.

This is a very good game to have came out in 2009. I will recommend to people who like gory games. (Listen to Seether for a better experience)