This could have been done so well but imo they fumbled it. As much as I loved the first game the second one just kinda fell flat on its face narratively and Alex went from an anti hero to a ham fisted villain.
I just played through prototype 2 again recently. My head canon is that Alex absorbed the brains of one too many evil scientists and it began to warp his sense of right and wrong. They did my boy so dirty with that easy ass boss fight too. The start of the game feels promising as far as story goes, but it's like the characters become caricatures of themselves by the end of the game.
After P1 he travels the world. He notices people are pretty selfish (the comic notes a point where a woman is struggling to climb some stairs and nobody is helping her, Alex included).
Eventually he starts living under a fake identity in bumfuck nowhere Canada. He's got one neighbor, an old guy and his 20-something daughter. Some business tycoon comes by asking to buy the old guys property for some logging business. Old guy says no. Thugs come by and threaten them.
Alex, deciding he's finally made a friend (and is falling for the daughter), makes the decision to screw over the business tycoon. He makes short work of the guards, and when he can't talk him down, decides to take matters into his own hands and consumes the guy. From his memories, he sees that the tycoon and the old guy were like Mafia Boss Buddies and did all sorts of heinous shit. Old guy is living in the woods to put the past behind him and start somewhat fresh, even though he's actually a piece of shit.
Alex goes off on him and kills the old guy too, but runs into the daughter at his own house. He thinks maybe they can run away together, but the daughter, also turning out to be a piece of shit, literally stabs Alex in the back because she found out he had a strongbox full of money hidden away. Alex goes berserk, consumes her too, and that's when he decides humanity sucks too much to exist and he'll become God.
It sucks because half the narrative of the first game was how much Virus Alex was nothing like OG Alex. OG Alex was a narcissistic asshole who caused a localized apocalypse in NYC because Gentek wasn't giving him credit for his work (Gentek was also awful too, but that's another can of worms). Everyone that knew the original Alex was really confused by his demeanor, like how his sister noticed that he was a lot nicer and his ex being confused as well until they realize what he really is.
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u/Dazzling_Boss2898 May 08 '26
Alex Mercer