Prey players report PC performance issues in specific area

Despite the lovely weather the UK has enjoyed lately, I spent most of my time last weekend in outer space wandering around Prey's deftly designed Talos 1 space station. As such, I've clocked up a fair few hours in Arkane's latest and, if you didn't know already, its PC performance is pretty solid.

My PC sits quite close to the game's recommended specs—i5-6600, GTX 980—but despite running on top settings, I've only suffered slow down in one area: the Reactor Control room, which I reached around 13 or so hours into my game. Without spoiling, this area is tied to a quest called Reboot and sees you entering the station's main reactor in order to unlock doors to specific areas.

I assumed my system requirements were the source of the problem (my drivers are up to date), however after dropping down to 'Low' settings the issue persisted. Admittedly, frame rates aren't something which normally bother me an inordinate amount however dipping below 15 FPS did prove frustrating—even if the problem was specific to this level.

If you've come across this issue too, worry not: it appears to be common with many players on the same boat/abandoned space station, despite having more capable setups than I.

This thread from the game's corner of Reddit suggests initiating certain parts of the quest appears to alleviate the problem, while others recommend rolling back drivers to their previous versions. User RAWD3AL notes that upon returning to the same area further down the line everything ran smoothly, which may suggest slowdown is tied to the quest itself.

Here's YouTube person CPC_RedDawn with some moving pictures of the stuttering zone:

It's worth noting that I'd consider this more of a PSA than a complaint as I've been delighted with Prey so far. I also imagine Arkane will target this in future patches.

As for our Prey review, Phil's hard at work on that as we speak—expect it very soon.