Maintenance engineer Jack Leary is working the graveyard shift at Prospect One, a remote mining outpost on Mars, when he receives a red alert from the nearby station of Fort Solis. Suspicious that it was manually activated rather than automated, he calls in to request a response; when that isn't forthcoming, he tells colleague Jessica Appleton that he's heading over to investigate. With storm warnings incoming, he hops inside a bulky rover to drive the short distance to the other base, the audio score as the vehicle trundles toward its destination making it clear he's unlikely to receive a warm welcome. The signs, then, are already ominous when, shortly after his arrival, he delivers a dire warning over the radio to his co-worker: "Jess… Solis… we are not alone!" But then he immediately breaks into laughter. He's only kidding. Everything's fine. For now.
It's not the only time we're wrongfooted during our hands-on time with a game that's pitched, tellingly, as a 'singleplayer thirdperson thriller'. Despite initial appearances to the contrary - and subsequent discoveries that heighten the sense of apprehension, well before we discover bloodied bandages on an office desk and a red handprint smeared on a pair of surgical curtains in the medbay - this is not that kind of science-fiction horror.
