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*
The United States of America.
New York City.
Manhattan.
The city was entombed in a deathly silence. Ruined skyscrapers stood like monoliths to a long-extinct civilization. Shredded neon signs, overturned yellow cabs, and the dried, rust-colored stains of coagulated blood painted the asphalt. This wasn't a riot; this was biological desolation.
Deep within the wreckage of a mangled taxi, something stirred.
It resembled a cluster of sinewy tentacles.
Jet-black filaments, writhing like slick, sentient leather, pulsed with predatory life.
The mass surged, climbing the twisted metal as if the vehicle itself had been reanimated, suffocating the surrounding debris in a shroud of viral biomass.
Despite the grotesque display,
The soldiers patrolling the perimeter didn't even flinch. They were a breed apart from the standard military—clad in heavy, pitch-black tactical gear and specialized rebreathers. An eerie, monolithic force.
One of them, likely the unit commander, pressed a finger to his comm-link.
"Sector clear."
The soldiers shifted their rifles in a synchronized arc, scanning the shadows.
Beneath their visors, their eyes were etched with a frantic, suppressed terror.
It was the look of men who knew Manhattan was no longer a home for the living.
High above, a pair of eyes looked down upon them.
Perched on the precipice of a shattered roof,
A dark silhouette haunted the ledge.
The figure wore a grey hoodie beneath a black jacket, the back emblazoned with a distinct, visceral red insignia. He watched the Blackwatch patrols with the cold, calculating focus of an apex predator.
He was a silent ghost amidst the smog.
The stench of madness, the copper tang of blood, and the distant, subsonic wail of the virus—these were his constants. His familiar world.
[My name is Alex Mercer.]
The internal monologue echoed, cold and hollow.
[I am the reason for all of this.]
The hooded man stood slowly, overlooking his kingdom of ash.
[They call me a killer, a monster, a terrorist.]
Without hesitation, he stepped off the edge into the void. Gravity claimed him. The wind roared past as the building's facade blurred into a smear of grey stone and broken glass.
[...I am all of these things.]
The impact was deafening—a thunderous crash that cratered the concrete floor.
Any mortal would have been reduced to a pulverized heap of shattered bone and ruptured organs. Instead, the man stood up within the dust cloud, entirely unscathed. He hadn't just fallen; he had arrived.
He turned and bolted.
He moved with a frantic, transcendent velocity that mocked human biology. A blur of kinetic energy.
A Blackwatch barricade loomed ahead—a wall of steel and reinforced concrete. He didn't slow down.
With a powerful surge of leg muscles, he launched into the air, soaring clear over the barrier in a single, impossible leap.
He hit the ground with enough force to spiderweb the asphalt.
[Three weeks ago, someone released a lethal virus at Penn Station.]
He navigated the debris with a fluid, violent parkour, clearing obstacles in a single bound.
[I woke up in a morgue.]
Defying physics, he sprinted vertically up the side of a skyscraper, his boots gripping the glass and steel like claws.
[Now, I hunt. I kill. I consume. By these acts, I exist.]
[I will find out who did this to me.]
The world faded into a deep, obsidian black.
From the darkness, a voice thick with lethal resolve resonated.
[And I will make them pay.]
*
"Man... that prologue never gets old."
I leaned back in my chair, staring at the monitor. I couldn't help but marvel at the protagonist's sheer, unadulterated power as he tore through the screen.
PROTOTYPE.
An action-adventure powerhouse released by Radical Entertainment back in 2009.
The ability to transmute your limbs into Claws or Whipfists, Alex Mercer's iconic hoodie, the visceral thrill of sprinting up the side of a Manhattan skyscraper—it was the game of my life. It was a masterpiece of biological mayhem that I'd never been able to forget.
Hands becoming blades, arms turning into lashes, throwing cars like baseballs, and shredding tanks and helicopters like they were made of wet tissue paper. Pure, kinetic badassery.
Back in middle school, this game was the catalyst for my worst 'chuunibyou' phase.
"But the glory days didn't last..."
2012.
Prototype 2 hit the shelves.
The visuals were sharper, the combat was refined, but the narrative was a disaster that gutted the franchise's soul.
They took Alex Mercer—the hero we grew attached to—turned him into a generic villain, and then had him consumed by the new protagonist at the end.
A fatal mistake.
Making Alex the antagonist just to kill him off was the ultimate middle finger to the fans.
"And no sequels since then. What a waste."
Maybe the sales were too stagnant; either way, Activision eventually shuttered Radical Entertainment. The series went dark after 2012. It wasn't just on hiatus—it was dead.
I know it's pathetic to cling to a dead franchise after all these years, but...
What could I do? No other game ever captured that specific flavor of power fantasy.
I was doom-scrolling through the internet, wasting my life as usual, when a notification caught my eye.
[PROTOTYPE: UPDATE]
"...An update?"
The news was as sudden as a heart attack.
"Now? After all this time?"
The game was over a decade old. Why would anyone bother updating it now?
Strangely, both Prototype 1 and 2 were listed as receiving the patch.
I clicked through to see the patch notes.
It looked standard at first—minor bug fixes and modern OS compatibility. But then, at the very bottom, there was a separate announcement.
[NEW PROTOTYPE PROJECT IN DEVELOPMENT]
"...What?"
A new game was in the works. The franchise was coming back.
"Is this a dream? Did I have a stroke?"
I pinched the back of my hand hard.
It stung. Cold, sharp reality.
My heart hammered against my ribs as I realized this was actually happening.
"Oh man! I need to see this! Give me the details..."
I smashed the link to the official site. The landing page confirmed it: a new Prototype game was in development. Exactly what the news said.
And then...
[LIMITED SURVEY FOR VETERAN PLAYERS (100+ HOURS IN PROTOTYPE 1 & 2)]
"A survey, huh..."
Are they actually taking player feedback for the new direction?
"Might as well."
I dived in.
[What would you prefer for the new Prototype? 1. A Sequel 2. A Remake / Reboot]
Without a second's hesitation, I clicked 2.
After what they did to Alex in the second game, a continuation felt impossible. A clean slate—a reboot or a remake—was the only way to save the franchise.
[If a Reboot, what are your expectations?]
"Expectations... obviously..."
A better story. That was the primary goal.
Honestly, you couldn't call the original Prototype's plot 'masterful.' It had too many loose ends.
Dana Mercer being treated like a MacGuffin before vanishing in the late game, Elizabeth Greene's paper-thin narrative, Karen Parker dying after a lukewarm betrayal—it was a mess of wasted potential.
[Describe a character you would like to see in the new Prototype.]
"What, like an OC creator?"
Fine. I wasn't going to pass up a chance to geek out.
I didn't expect it to actually matter, but I started typing with the focus of a novelist, building a character for the hell of it.
"The name... let's go with Kiria Minazuki."
Why a Japanese name? Because it sounded cool. That was it.
[Kiria Minazuki]
"Appearance... white hair, red eyes... no, that's too cliché. Let's give him heterochromia—one eye green. And the lore..."
Before I knew it, I was deep in the zone, crafting a detailed background and aesthetic.
"Phew... that should do it, right?"
It was incredibly self-indulgent, but—
It was exactly my style.
[Are you certain you wish to submit this character?]
It was just a character creator survey. Why the double-check?
I clicked 'Yes' without a single thought.
[We thank you for the material. Now, please... provide the sample in person.]
...???
What did that mean?
"Sample? What are you talki—"
A sudden, agonizing chime rang in my skull. A high-frequency whine—*beeeeeep*—screeched through my ears.
My vision blurred. The light from the monitor began to warp and distort.
The screen didn't just glitch; it began to bleed into patterns that looked exactly like the Blacklight virus from the game.
"What... wait, what's happening...!"
My balance failed. The floor felt like it had been deleted.
My head slammed into the desk.
"Guh—"
My limbs went dead. My body refused to obey the command to stand up.
An overwhelming drowsiness washed over me. I tried to resist—every instinct told me that falling asleep now was a death sentence—but the lethargy was absolute.
The strength left my fingers.
My body went limp.
My eyelids grew heavy and closed.
The last thing I saw was the glowing red insignia pulsing on the monitor, spreading like a plague.
And then...
[...Sample M-01 secured.]
[Commencing Evolution.]
With those words ringing in my ears, I slipped into the dark.
*