Prey Mooncrash: Escaping A Funhouse of Horrors

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After releasing Prey in 2017 to an underwhelming reception, Arkane Studios surprised fans and critics by expanding it with Prey: Mooncrash the following year. Shamus Young, who initially recommended Prey, extolled the virtues of Mooncrash in 2018. With these recommendations I purchased the Prey package.

Mooncrash reuses the components of Prey, but with a twist. The player controls Peter, a temporary employee of Kasma Corp. Kasma Corp is the more ethically compromised rival of TranStar, the company that operates Talos I (in Prey) and the Moonbase. From a satellite orbiting the Moon, Peter enters a virtual reality to repeatedly review the events of the catastrophe on the Moonbase.

The simulation relives the last half hour of five characters; a soldier, a spy, a volunteer, an engineer, and the Moonbase director. Each character features a number of mechanics which distinguish them from each other. The player can only employ the Volunteer at the start, with each remaining character unlocked by completing specific objectives. Each character begins a simulation with a different collection of starting equipment. Unlike Morgan from Prey, each character is limited to certain abilities that fit their style. The Volunteer learns psychic abilities, while the Engineer carries a portable machine gun turret, and the Solider is skilled in combat with additional health and proficiency with ranged weapons. These skills are unlocked by using Neuromods found on the base, or purchased before each mission. While abilities and items differentiate characters, they also have two objectives. Each character needs to escape from the Moonbase by their preferred route. When a character completes this objective, they unlock a story mission for themselves.
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Prey: Mooncrash includes a significant checklist of victory conditions. Collect Neuromods, chipsets, and explore. But it also requires that the player unlocks the five characters, completes each characters' story mission, escapes with the five characters, and escapes using the five possible escapes. The Moonbase features five possible escapes; a space shuttle, an escape capsule, a mass driver, a sci-fi magic portal, and downloading one's consciousness onto a digital server. Each can only be used once per run, but the player can reset the simulation whenever they want. A player might reset the simulation because they messed up, or it became corrupted. Each simulation starts at corruption level 1, and increases to level 5. Each level adds new Typhon, and makes them more deadly. Instead of advancing to level six, the simulation collapses and resets the Moonbase. During a simulation the player reduces corruption by using Delay Time Loop items scattered around the base. Tough enemies, like Telepaths, Technopaths, Poltergeists, and Moon Sharks drop Delay Time Loops on death, incentivizing and rewarding conflict. As the player completes objectives the simulation better approximates the true conditions of the Moonbase, and the area becomes deadly. Parts of the Moonbase will start without power, on fire, or feature more enemies. Eventually the player will need to complete the trickiest objective of all, a concurrent, five man escape. Since each escape method can only be used once per simulation, and since the simulation becomes more difficult as it becomes more corrupt, this five person escape needs to be carefully planned in advance. Besides good planning, the player should undertake it earlier to avoid a tougher simulation.

Though the difficulty of the simulation increases as the player completes objectives, the characters improve with Neuromods, chipsets, and better weaponry. During the sessions the player finds fabrication plans, chip sets, and items, which they purchase before a mission, even after resetting the simulation. While each new simulation resets some aspects of the Moonbase, these plans, chip sets, and items remain. Also, any Neuromods the characters installed remain, so their abilities continue to improve.

Prey: Mooncrash improves on the original system by adding a number of new enemies, weapons, items, and abilities. The game also features a trauma system, by which the player suffers burns, concussions, radiation sickness, poisoning, or bone fractures. Bleeding causes the player to take additional damage when running or jumping, while radiation sickness blurs the character's vision. Traumas can be cured by the appropriate medicine, if the player can find it.
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Perhaps, because the difficulty is supposed to increase during play, Prey: Mooncrash is surprisingly easy at the start. Even though the player character is weak, the Moonbase is in one piece with only weak Typhon roaming its halls. But even completing the five person escape didn't feel difficult. The enemies were stronger, the base a smoking ruin, but the player characters decimated enemies with super powers and devastating weapons. It's not that Mooncrash doesn't evoke intense moments, but that it didn't sustain them over the duration of a mission. The Moonbase is a puzzle, and there are a number of tricks the player can employ to negate its strengths. Always carry two (or four) control modules to restore power to a section, or fix the tramway. Also, always purchase the RSV-77 Neuroelectric Disruptor for each character. The reason though is a bit more convoluted. Like Prey, many of the Neuromod abilities are Typhon abilities. When a character has installed Typhon abilities the Moonbase defense perceive them as a threat and engages its defense mechanisms. The most frustrating defense is the Typhon gates. These gates blocking passage if they sense nearby Typhon. A character considered a Typhon can't pass, but there is a simple work around. The gates can be disabled by an electromagnetic pulse. The stun gun, mentioned above, provides this pulse on demand.

Players of Prey may wonder what is the chronological relationship between Mooncrash and the base game. The expansion seems to imply that the Typhon attacks on Talos and the Moonbase are simultaneous. One ingenious player found that they could see Talos I from the Moonbase. Of the five plots, of the five characters, only one seems relevant to the story. The events of the five stories occur in a particular order, with the Volunteer's last. In it, he is controlled by a Telepath, into (possibly) bringing a Mimic to Earth. The Volunteer's story mission offers a unique twist, because the Typhon breaks him from his containment, and as he walks towards his goal, the Typhon protect him, fighting off droids activated to defend the Moonbase.

During Prey: Mooncrash, the player occasionally exits the virtual reality simulator to control Peter. After Peter finishes his assignment for Kasma Corp, they abandon him to oxygen deprivation in his capsule. But through a series of quick maneuvers, Peter crash lands on the Moon, locates a space shuttle, and pilots it back to Earth. While his survival is good news, the bad news is that a mimic hitches a ride.
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One question I asked in the last article was, how do the Typhon travel to Earth. Another similar one is, how did they break containment? Both questions are answered in the same way. There were many simultaneous attempts to break containment, almost as if it were planned months in advance. And, the Typhon made many attempts to reach Earth. Many are hinted at, but how many succeeded? Enough.

Unfortunately Prey: Mooncrash doesn't answer any of the other questions mentioned in the previous article, so the ending is completely unsatisfactory without a sequel on the horizon.

In Conclusion, Prey + the Mooncrash DLC is a successful throwback to System Shock 2, and Bioshock, while comparing favorably to Alien: Isolation and Dishonored. It's greatest strengths feature in the opening hours of the game, with the sudden reveal of Morgan's captivity, the terror and tension of the Typhon, and the interesting mechanics. As one explores further, Prey retains its strengths of a beautiful station, and wonderful level design, but the story starts to show its seams. At the end it runs out of steam, and the conclusion feels truncated. The Mooncrash DLC recycles the original mechanics and fabricates them into a unique experience, that exceeds its predecessor by condensing the experience and abandoning the broader plot.

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