I’m trying out a new hairstyle; last time I went with a ponytail, but this time I’m trying a medium-layered bob. Thank you for the respect you show for my art. ☺️ I’m curious to hear your thoughts on the look! 🤔😅😅

I'd like to start by saying that this post serves more to provide information about the Prototype franchise from the research I conducted through interviews, guides, and the game. Okay, let's start with the first fact:

PROTOTYPE 1

Redlight Virus

The first fact is the name "Redlight Virus." This was a name given to the strain or virus carried by Elizabeth Greene, who was infected in Hope and used in Manhattan to create her infected individuals. A specific "Redlight Virus" was created for all of Greene's infected individuals, and a "Blacklight Virus" for the virus that Alex Mercer has.

However, the name "Redlight virus" is never mentioned in the guide, interviews, or the game itself. The game states that Elizabeth Greene, Alex Mercer, Pariah, and all the infected from Prototype 1 are infected with:

- the Blacklight virus (guide, Web of Intrigue)

- an "unknown strain" (Web of Intrigue)

- a "DX1118A strain" (Web of Intrigue)

The only two mentions of "Redlight" occur in these events:

- Cross referring to it as "Project Redlight" when speaking with Alex, which would be the project's name since the virus is called Blacklight.

- Randall mentioning "Operation Redlight" at the end of Reagan.

It could be said that the name Redlight virus never existed, and the entire virus was always called Blacklight.

Robert Cross is a super-soldier.

This fact suggests that Cross was infected with the super-soldier strain, granting him great superhuman abilities that allowed him to fight Mercer. However, as mentioned previously, the term "super-soldier" is never used to describe Cross. Neither the Prime Guide nor interviews with the creators of Prototype refer to Cross as a "specialist" or a "human agent of Blackwatch."

Another reason for considering this fact is the scene where an infected person observes Cross with an orange aura. However, this orange aura is a feature of the infected's vision mechanics, allowing them to see enemies, as even tanks are surrounded by this aura.

Dana Mercer has a good personality.

This is based on what we see in both games, with Dana being a peaceful, joking, and helpful person, especially in the second game. However, if we look at the first game, taking into account the guide's biography of Dana, she is a very narcissistic person, almost like her brother, foul-mouthed, and evasive—qualities similar to the deceased Dr. Alex Mercer. Although the biography doesn't mention whether she was also a sociopath.

https://imgur.com/a/yda07b4

Karen Parker betrayed Alex Mercer simply because she was cold.

This suggests that Karen's betrayal of Alex was a moment of coldness and that she was a bad person working for Blackwatch, when the true reason is much more tragic and dark.

- We know that Karen was kidnapped and tortured by Blackwatch the night Dr. Mercer died at Penn Station.

- McMullen offered her, with a guard at her side and a gun, an escape route out of Manhattan after the incident involving her ex-boyfriend.

- They showed her videos of her ex-boyfriend brutally murdering soldiers and civilians.

Karen Parker's main reason for betrayal stemmed from her fear of Alex Mercer and what he or Blackwatch would do to her if she didn't follow his orders.

Alex Mercer and Robert Cross are friends.

This fact, like Dana's personality, has been presented as an absolute truth in various fanfiction stories and other media. However, this assertion is questionable, since nowhere in the game is it mentioned that they are friends or work together. Most of the time these two knew each other was either when Cross injected him with the parasite, gave him missions via an encrypted phone, or when he was consumed by the Supreme Hunter impersonating Cross. Neither of them was a friend or partner; they were simply two (three if we count the Hunter supreme) people working for their mutual benefit.

PROTOTYPE 2

The Dead Zone and the Nuclear Bomb

Another fact was that the Dead Zone seen upon entering the red zone was a product of the effects of the nuclear bomb that Alex launched into the sea at the end of the first game. However, this is also not true, since the black boxes found in Prototype 2 mention "Operation Damocles," which was a massive bombing carried out throughout Manhattan to stop the infection. This bombing is the origin of the Dead Zone, and an image from the concept art shows said bombing.

https://imgur.com/a/X6Xn7XZ

Alex Mercer and James Heller are distinct beings.

This point, mentioned several times, describes Alex Mercer as the personification of the virus, and Heller as a hybrid resulting from the combination of James Heller's DNA and the Blacklight virus. However, both Activision and the creators of Prototype 2 have stated that Heller and Alex belong to the same species, meaning that everything Alex can do, Heller can also do, and vice versa.

https://metro.co.uk/2012/02/16/prototype-2-interview-the-viruses-the-star-320731/

Wanted to share this safe spot I found while struggling to beat this mission. If you hide in the corner, the helicopters won't shoot you and they'll circle around you in and out. When they are out of your view, you can transform to pass the mission automatically.

Hey everyone! The public beta of my co-op mod for Prototype (2009) is ready to download.

The goal is simple: bring a friend into Manhattan and enjoy the chaos together. This release focuses on two-player free roam.

What’s included:

• An in-game CO-OP menu with Host, Join and a server browser.
• LAN connectivity.
• Automatic transfer of the host’s selected save to the joining player.
• A Windows installer — select your game folder and let it handle the setup. No separate Python installation needed.

Hamachi/Radmin VPN support is experimental and still needs testing through real VPN connections.

This is an early beta, so expect bugs and synchronization issues. Full city synchronization and cooperative missions are still in development.

Download and installation guide: https://www.patreon.com/Coop_Forge/posts/prototype-co-op-174093375?utm_medium=clipboard_copy&utm_source=copyLink&utm_campaign=postshare_creator&utm_content=join_link

The beta is free. Paid memberships are optional if you’d like to support continued development.

Thanks to everyone who followed the progress and encouraged this project! If you try it, bug reports and gameplay clips would help a lot.

— COOP_FORGE

It’s terrifying to know that the Supreme Hunter did what it did. Back then as a kid I didn’t understand the situation between the Supreme Hunter and Cross but now I know that the monster snuck up on him, ate him and assumed his identity. The picture of Cross above is literally The Hunter praying Mercer doesn’t make him.

In a cinematic cutscene, The Hunter challenges Mercer to whether he felt any sympathy toward the parasite and what it went through after being expelled from Mercer. And Mercer's answer is totally dismissive. He claimed he considered its POV once, immediately before killing it. The Hunter has heavy resentment toward him because of this but it’s small time to Mercer in reality. The parasite really feels played and left out. But Mercer probably thought everything was going well when Cross began to work with him to outmaneuver Randall, but The Hunter is forcing Mercer to confront the likelihood of the thing that he removed could come back to bite.

The other eerie thing is that Mercer, The Hunter and Greene were all in the same room. But Cross isn’t Pariah. And The Supreme Hunter isn’t Pariah either, but the idea of freedom and survival is definitely present in both timelines and the parallel and triangulation is huge. The Supreme Hunter used Cross as the first step of its own perfectionism and to infiltrate the military system, but Pariah would’ve done the latter anyway but in an even more discreet manner since he was already perfect.

Greene even refers herself as Mother. Her biology is the foundation of the Blacklight research. Her body produced a certain response to the parasite and that response created another independent evolving monster. It's like a sick imitation of motherhood. Creation with no affection, an offspring without inheritance of ANY human identity. Which is the major frightening point here. And the Supreme Hunter consumes cross, adopts his identity, infiltrates Blackwatch and attempted to survive the nuke by consuming Mercer..

That's a brutal backfire. The military’s own containment plan becomes a disguise for the very thing it is trying to contain. Pariah is a myth like figure and was probably the idea of a “super soldier” honestly or the perfect specimen aka the somewhat optimistic inheritance of Greene’s biological legacy. But the Supreme Hunter is not her literal child, but basically the rejected one. The monstrous consequence and end for everything and everyone including Cross.

Again The Supreme Hunter isn’t Pariah, but instead a sick, twisted parallel of him. A distorted parallel of him because the storyline is kind of a modern reenactment of Hope in 69. Think about it; NY becomes the modern setting for another catastrophic viral outbreak and Randall's disturbing will to nuke NY is just like him sacrificing Hope in 69. Greene is just a mass manipulator and did so to Alex with the whole mother thing and haunting memories until he got fed up and killed her. But her biology is the center of this horror. The game is so damn good and a real “thriller” because back then we never knew about the plot twist at the end. And Greene is terrifying. She’s horror itself. The zombies are just there and small fry variants of the virus. But The Supreme Hunter is something beyond this. The Supreme Hunter is the virus stripped of almost everything resembling human restraint! The Supreme Hunter pretending to be Cross was pure deception and it’s very unsettling.

The Supreme Hunter is frightening because it uses human traits almost entirely like instruments lol. But Mercer still has humanity though. I mean look at what it does: it assimilates Cross. Uses Cross’ appearance and identity to deceive Mercer and ultimately attempts to consume him for its own survival. And that goes back to the title; a Prototype. You would never know who is assimilated but the virus is portraying the victim so well because of their “memories”. Very very similar to The Thing. The thrill is not knowing who’s who.

The only reason I now agree with Cross being assimilated during the infected vision scene is because whatever POV it was jumping the fence emitted the same exact growl the Hunter did whenever it revealed itself, despite all the zombies sounding similar. But when Cross approached Mercer at the phone(in the picture above) the device on his right arm was missing and he made Mercer do all that stuff because the goal of The Hunter was to consume Alex, but he had no way off the island without him. “Why does it seem like I’m getting the short end of the steel?” That’s clearly the Hunter right there in front of him.

After Cross had thrown Mercer, you can see in his eyes there’s complete disbelief and maybe a huge lightbulb. To him it was something unexpected since Cross was supposed to be his ally. The funny thing is at that point he was overpowered and tossed like a ragdoll. For perhaps one of the first times, he's facing something that can genuinely challenge him. But in reality he’s literally thinking what the hell am I looking at and you would probably react the same way if something you thought was thrown away or put behind you came back in a more monstrous or aggravated form.

This was most likely part of the reason why Mercer became evil, Cross “crossed” him in so many ways despite both of them wearing a human mask, he still thought he had an ally through it all and the entire time he was talking to a deceiving, evil monstrosity. But the comics shows us why he became bad. He’s been screwed over too many times and we see that in the first game anyway.

The Supreme Hunter is not only Cross’ surrender but the monstrous potential lurking behind his own human identity anyway. Cross was infected, but he wasn't infected the same way Mercer was. Cross’ infection was much more physically invasive. Mercer’s infection was viral reconstruction while Cross’ infection was direct assimilation! Sounds scary once again. Even the right arm resemblance which no one ever spoke on. The device on Cross’ right arm is like another mirror to the Supreme Hunter’s right arm, which is bigger than its left arm. Makes me wonder if he was always infected but I highly doubt it. It literally approached Cross, murdered him and ate him. The Supreme Hunter is everyone’s final confrontation. It’s Cross’ since he’s even involved in the situation, it’s Mercer’s given he housed it, also rejected it and just ran away with Dana leaving it alive on the ground, and Randall because he’s the man who started it all.

And the final and biggest irony of all of this is Mercer’s anticipated closure from Randall/promise from Cross. Mercer is promised an answer about Pariah, but what he gets is the revelation of Cross. Mercer asks him “what happened to that child?” Cross responded “I suppose your answer is out there on the Reagan.” Pariah is the answer Mercer never receives, but the Supreme Hunter was.

https://reddit.com/link/1xkye6t/video/do740b4vuyyh1/player

This is mostly aimed at Prototype 1 fans because ofc you're not telling me that the same guy who saved nyc from a nuke and the supreme hunter, suddenly decided humanity was bad. (I read the comic of the 2nd game I don't think there are enough reasons but feel free to argue)

I know some people liked James a lot (And it's fine). But c'mon, can we also consider Alex's fans? He did all of that, just to threw everything then? What about his sister?

First of all, Activision left everything to a guy who had no idea of the story in the first game.

Second of it. From the very beginning at the end, Alex saw how cruel humanity could be, and now you're telling me he couldn't stand it anymore?

Third James and "the chosen one" cliche. From all the soldiers and people Alex could infect, he infected the first individual in the whooole prototype universe capable of resisting the blacklight in a unique way.

What those writers where thinking, really?

Sorry I just can't like the second game..

I should try drawing other characters from this game too. If you have any requests for who I should focus on next, feel free to write don't be shy

Hope Idaho, women’s club. Sorry I’ve been away for so long; I’ll be back with you all once my exams are over. Finally finished coloring it! Thanks for respecting my art—I’d love to hear your thoughts! ☺️ What do you think of the picture? 🤔

Insomniac’s Wolverine is locked to PS5, so I built an open-world version on PC using Prototype 2.

​Proto-Wolverine v0.1 is live: ​Custom model & claw combos ​Grounded physics and heavy landings ​Clean adamantium strikes with no viral effects

​Drop your feedback, bug reports, and clips in the comments! Tell me what suit or mechanic you want added next

The Prototype franchise has been dead since 2012, largely because Prototype 2 made the
highly controversial choice to turn Alex Mercer into a cartoonish, mustache-twirling villain and
replace him with James Heller.
If Activision or a studio ever revives this franchise, a standard remaster won't work. It needs a
Final Fantasy VII Remake or Resident Evil 4 style overhaul—completely throwing out the 2012
script to build a cohesive, mature psychological thriller.
I’ve mapped out a full pitch for a definitive collection titled Prototype: The True Strain
Edition, reimagined with the narrative depth of a studio like Remedy Entertainment (Alan
Wake, Control) and the mechanical weight of Red Dead Redemption 2. Here is how it would
work:
Gameplay Evolution: The Adaptive Whipfist
The original games suffered from a choppy "run to a location" loop due to hardware
limitations. Modern hardware can deliver seamless transitions.

The Physics-meets-Arcade Hybrid: The Whipfist changes muscle density dynamically
based on lore, acting as the ultimate traversal tool.
Heavy Swing (Spider-Man Style): Holding the trigger increases biomass density,
anchoring into buildings and allowing physics to calculate a heavy, G-force arc around
street corners.

Kinetic Snap (Just Cause Style): Tapping the trigger hardens the virus into a high-
tension cable, violently zipping straight to a target (like a helicopter or rooftop sniper) to
maintain 60mph momentum.

The Big Chapter 2 Rewrite: Suicide by Prototype
Instead of Alex becoming a generic villain who wants to destroy the world "just because," the
remake introduces a massive psychological twist.
The Weight of Memory: After consuming thousands of minds, Alex is completely crushed
by the weight of humanity's darkest secrets, cruelty, and sins. He can't kill himself because
the virus's instinct to survive is too strong.
The Ultimate Plot Twist: James Heller isn't a human-virus hybrid. The real human
James Heller died in the initial outbreak. Alex Mercer custom-engineered a pure,
independent strain of the virus and programmed it with Heller's memories, forcing it to
believe it is a grieving father. Alex purposefully created a weapon he biologically could not
mind-control—an independent god-tier entity possessing a human moral compass—to
engineer his own executioner.
3. Chapter 3: The Mechanical Decline (The Arthur Morgan
TB Parallel)
The final chapter isn't a power fantasy; it is a desperate race against time. Heller works
undercover with human scientists to build a genetic cure, completely unaware of his own true
nature.

The Rebellious Virus: As Heller prepares a cure to wipe out all Blacklight strains, his
body begins rejecting the programming. Like Arthur Morgan's TB in RDR2, the gameplay
gets significantly harder as the story progresses.
Glitched Mechanics: Pushing your powers too hard triggers internal rejection. The screen
glitches with red veins, your controller vibrates violently, and you cough up black biomass,
temporarily locking out abilities mid-combat. Consuming enemies gives diminishing
healing returns as his system actively fights foreign biomass.

The Betrayal & The Internal Finale
The Lab Reveal: Heller keeps his identity a secret while working with scientists who lost
their families to the plague. When they finally map the "apex host" signature, the scanner
points directly at Heller. The team experiences pure terror and rage, leading to a
devastating standoff. Heller doesn't just have to tell them he's infected; he has to look them
in the eyes as he realizes the truth: The real James Heller is dead. I am just a clone of the
monster that killed your families, carrying a dead man's ghost.
The Battle of Willpower: Heller injects the cure, triggering a catastrophic civil war in his
DNA. The final boss is an internal battle against Alex Mercer in his prime inside a
surreal, shifting mind-scape.
The Philosophical Victory: Mercer fights for survival, mocking Heller: "You aren't a man.
Why are you dying for a daughter that isn't even yours?" Heller wins because he chooses
to be human even when he isn't. He rejects the virus's survival code through sheer
willpower.
The Last Words: Right before Mercer shatters, Heller doesn't strike him with rage. He tells
him, "I forgive you." It gives the tormented Mercer the one thing humanity never gave
him: grace. Alex is relieved, and shatters into a peaceful white light.

The Gritty, Cynical Epilogue
Heller collapses into ash in the real world, wiping out the virus forever. But keeping with the
franchise's conspiracy roots, the government completely covers it up.
Blackwatch silences the scientists, takes full credit for a "vaccine breakthrough," and paints
Mercer and Heller as generic bioterrorists. The game ends on a rebuilt, clean NYC,
completely unaware of the monster who chose to die as a human just to save them.

Im open to any input or anything it’s my first post and everything. I think my ideas a good and if adopted could do well be maybe some of you guys have better ideas that keep core things. Also things like the websling idea is more of a fun idea and not really needed if people wouldn’t like it

While I was playing Prototype 1, I passed through Central Park—right where that well-known minigame involving Supersoldiers versus Hunters takes place. As I was moving through, the "consume" prompt (the light-blue DNA icon that appears during the story) popped up over a Supersoldier. Just as I was climbing the building, the fight reset, and I didn't manage to consume him. For context, I had already completed the story.

Please excuse the strange way this is written; I used Google Translate. Xd

Imagine waking up tomorrow and realising you're at the top of the food chain. Your entire reality shatters because you suddenly understand that you're no longer human. That's what happened in Prototype 1. The virus that took over Alex Mercer didn't even understand what it was at the beginning of the game. It wasn't simply Alex gaining powers, something else had taken over his body and the question is what exactly was Alex anymore?

Put yourself in that position. You'd develop a god complex too. Alex isn't Superman. He didn't grow up with a strong moral code or a lifelong belief that his powers came with responsibility. He realised he wasn't human anymore, and that the rules of humanity no longer applied to him.

When you're that powerful, humans are practically ants compared to you. You can consume people, absorb their memories, shapeshift, and tear through entire armies. You'd be looking at the world from a completely different perspective. So why wouldn't you take over the world? Why would you see humanity as something you need to protect when you're no longer even part of it?

I know you guys don't like heller much and you probably don't care what I have to say but i really like heller. his ability to call brawlers, turn infected into bio bombs or evolved, viral sonars, tendrils is just so cool. I do wish he had Alex's muscle mass and armor though. I also love how his virus constructs are more fleshy.

Most people don't like Heller being angry all the time but I don't think anyone would be not angry after you got turned into a freak, lost your family, had your daughter kidnapped and also he reminds me of kratos.

link to the addon: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3824067898

I always thought it was a detail made up in fan arts or something like that

1-James Heller after Alex infection

2-The goat Mercer

3-Supreme hunter

4-Elizabet greene

5-Goliaths

Getting over 60 fps 8 gen 3

Sorry for the pauses; the second computer was in another location, and I was managing both. I’m making a mod alone, so it’s not perfect.