Stuck for a topic, so you invented a problem? The older mainline entries are numbered 0-6. If "newcomers" can't count, then they will not be able to fathom the world of Yakuza. Maybe that's your problem.

First off, Prey did not flip the franchise on its head. Defeating the predator with primitive weapons is exactly what Dutch did in the first film.

Also, the idea for different time periods dates back to the second film when Harrigan is given a flintlock pistol as a trophy for defeating the predator, thereby showing that the predators have been coming to earth for at least hundreds of years.

Prey was a good film, but it just expanded on premises set up in prior films.