Shotgun at the airlock: the ammo count lives on the weapon (4 loaded, 16 reserve)

About this game

Developer: Arkane Studios · Publisher: Bethesda Softworks · Platform: PC (Steam) · Art style: Realistic 3D · Screen type: HUD & Gameplay UI

More Prey screens in the Gallery

What to study

Prey's most quoted interface decision, caught in a single frame: there is no HUD ammo counter because the shotgun is wearing it. A small backlit panel inset into the weapon's receiver shows a large '4' over a smaller '16', loaded over reserve, and nothing else on screen competes with it: no crosshair furniture, no health bar, no objective text. The same system repeats across the arsenal in these trailers (the pistol carries '10 / 136' on its rear face at about 1:00 in the same trailer, and the Q-Beam wears a circular charge gauge), which is what makes it a system rather than a prop detail: because every weapon reports its own state, the screen layer can stay empty and Talos I itself becomes the interface, the segmented airlock ring ahead is lit like a status indicator, and the threat beyond it is a web of Typhon energy you read with your eyes, not a marker. The honest limit of this prep belongs in the note: this is the ONLY settled interface frame in either of the two Steam gameplay trailers. The TranStar screens the game is famous for, the Psychoscope scan view, the Neuromod tree, the grid inventory, the TranScribe and the station terminals, never open at any timestamp in the fetched movies, so this page documents the one Prey interface the official trailers actually show, and the menu systems remain a gap to close with a different source. Frame at about 0:04 in the Gameplay Trailer 2 video (Steam), a pipeline scene-change survivor (candidates/v0_0001.png at 3.52s, copied to the workdir root as shotgun-ammo-display-airlock.png).

Patterns

How the screen is arranged.

diegetic-controls minimal-hud

Components

Parts on screen.

Marker Vitals bar Crosshair Quest tracker

Screen inventory

• bottom-right foreground, the shotgun itself is the interface: a small illuminated display panel inset into the receiver carries the only numbers anywhere on screen, a large white '4' (shells loaded) stacked over a smaller '16' (shells in reserve), angled with the weapon so it is read the way the character would read it
• no HUD layer exists in the frame at all: no crosshair cluster, no health or stamina bar, no ammo counter pinned to a corner, no objective marker, every fact the player needs has been moved onto the weapon or into the world
• the airlock ahead doubles as an in-world status display: a segmented circular hatch ring lit in bands of red, white and amber around its rim, with a grated walkway running through it toward the threat
• beyond the hatch the threat is also read environmentally, not through UI: a crackling yellow Typhon energy web fills the far chamber, backlit by a single round work light

Top 3 colors

#040607 25%#12141b 23%#384449 15%

Top three palette colors by share. The remaining colors make up the rest.

Source and credit

© Arkane Studios / Bethesda Softworks, Prey screenshot: Prey - Gameplay Trailer 2 video (Steam), shown for design study and commentary. PlayCraft is an unofficial fan project, not affiliated with or endorsed by Bethesda Softworks.

Source tier 2 (publisher-released) · screenshot: Steam store page · Steam page

Source details

Fetched 2026-10-21. verified 2026-10-21: pipeline scene-change frame (candidates/v0_0001.png, 3.5215s) inspected visually at full resolution (1920x1080 native) and confirmed as a genuine, settled, fully legible gameplay frame, the shotgun's inset display panel reads a large '4' over a smaller '16' with no blur or ghosting, the airlock ring and its red/white/amber segment lighting are sharp, and no trailer typography, letterboxing or transition effect overlays the frame; no HUD element other than the weapon display is present anywhere in the frame

no published policy found (checked 2026-10-21); fair-use study use, takedown honored within 48h

Rights holders: see Copyright & takedown.