Thoughts on Mooncrash after Finishing it:

[EQFL_Sapare]

As stated, I just finished the DLC last night and since then had a wide array of thoughts floating in my mind. Obviously, SPOILERS ahead so do not read if you do not want things spoiled!

I don't hate mooncrash, far from it, i think it has some really impressive mechanics and variables it can rotate into. But I think it seriously suffers from not knowing what its trying to be, almost to the level of making me wonder if it was severly reworked halfway through.

It advertises itself as a roguelike where you try and die over and over, the enviorment around you fundementaly changing and your ultimate goal is to escape with all 5 characters in a row.

Here is the thing, nothing in this expansion is actually very difficult once you unlock a few fabrication plans, the very first time i unlocked my 5th character i got the 5 man escape done, and then the game just didn't know what to do.

I had to do 3 more story missions and when i had 26/27 objectives compleet it pulls me out of the sim and tells me the last one will be real hard. But of course, thats just becuse they thought this would be the 5 man escape objectives, it wasnt, it was running around and scraping listening devices for 3 min.

And all of this undermines so much of the work that the dev's put into this mode. In my last few runs I found out they added cool stuff like acid/fire/phy modifiers to guns you can find. You can have areas without oxygen or power. And duststorms in the crator. But all of this matters very little if you load out with 1 pistol, 200 ammo, propulsion upgrade chip, 10 time stop clocks, and 10 emp charges(to knock out the gates). You will never go past corruption level 1 and nothing can stop you.

So, mechanically I sit here feeling guilty for using the sim points, but I just wanted to beat the game the way IT wanted me to, and then go back and do a 5 man escape without buying anything(and if possible getting rid of the neuromods).

Here is the thing, once you beat the game you can't go back into the sim.

There is a roguelike that stops you from playing after you "beat" it.

So, no, I am not going through the start and unlocking everyone again just to handicap myslef because the devs though undermining their core features was a good idea.

The short on mechanics: if all you want is to "win", you can bruteforce victory in this mode after about 10 simulation runs. This is not the "let's get back to work" over and over that the trailer made it look like, this plays very much like normal Prey.(but easier if you are used to nightmare)

But here is the thing, I adore Prey and its setting, and I am not even a fan of roguelikes, so I thought i would at least appreciate the new lore, seeing anything from this world.

I don't.

This story is so poorly told and so nonsensical that I can only pray that its non cannon, because this is some Hunt down freeman abuse of lore.(unless i just completely missed the core pieces that somehow made this all fit)

You had a secret moonbase and a SISTER all this time and no one ever cared to mention this in the base game? And don't give me this "its secret though". Morgan knew about the base, so January knew about the base. You blow up Talos 1 to stop the tryphon but he never tells you "oh yea, there is a 2nd base we should blow up too, just in case". And your brother never feels like telling you that you have a sister who also experiments on Typhons to try to persuade you not to blow up Talos 1?

All your family pictures happen to exempt her? My expectations were that she was addopted or that the Yu part of the name was some kind of honorifics granted do to her high status. And maybe somewhere in this game it mentions this, but as far as I know it never explains this suddeny sister appearance.

And non of that explains this moonbase, so somehow they shuttle stuff from this moonbase to Talos 1 but keep it under wraps? The pilots must be really well payed and the moonbase invisible from orbit. And why is it secret, its just another base they have, and Kasma has spies in it.

How does Kasma have spies on your secret base but the people a few thousand KM away in orbit don't know about it?

We also never get a good explenation on how the Typhon got through the base. I assume the shuttle brought them from Talos 1(being all those bodies in the area). But why doesnt the Typhon gate work, they all seem perfectly functional when you are playing. I know the base game never really explained how the Typhon's broke free on Talos 1, but the base game has a very complex, strong and consistent plot which allows you to belive that the vagueness was intentional.

This really does not boast the same robustness.

As said I beat the game, and I still have no idea what happened, idk what Kasma gained from watching these sims, or even if they gained anything. All that is revealed is that they highjacked the operator. But then they proceed to DESTROY the operator by trying to kill you for no reason. If all they needed was data you decripted, then what did they actually get?

Because all we got was the reveal that the Kasma spy was the janitor and that she killed Yu, which Kasma already knew. I guess they also know that the escape pod has a mimic in it but being Earth falls I assume they don't follow up on that at all.

It was also pure giberish for them to have this whole setup with "saving" you, only for you to crash yourself on the moon. And then you find the shuttle? But the shuttle left with the engineer. Did she ever leave? Because we know the escape of the convict was fake and he died in the escape pod, and Yu dies in her escape plan. So did no one ever actually escape and the whole "get off the moon" was just a joke?

I would have been ok with a little bit more info post credits here, it just cuts to you inside the shuttle but your character can't fly a shuttle and we never see the Engineer, who is supposed to have left BEFORE you got the simulation.

Also, the mimic double at the end is just a cheap kick in the private area for anyone who beat this mode. The base game did that, but it was part of a bigger twist and very good sequal bait. This was just "whooohooo" and a spit in the face.(also, pointless because we know there is a mimic on the escape pod. OH no, TWO mimics on route to earth now) How would this guy who has lived through tens of simulations dealing with typhons not notice the mimic copy of his childs toy?

Also, how does someone survive crashing their pod into the moon, they made it very clear this was suicidal, and he doesnt even have a scratch. Prey isnt dead space, please.


So, in conclusion:

Mechanically it feels like a really good proof of concepter that is undermined by having two extremely different goals.(one is to tell a linear story you play through once and does not stop you from finishing it. The other is a roguelike that you try and try again, failing till you slowly drag yourself to victory. So many resources are wasted on proceedual generation when you will only see most of the elements once, and ignore them because scavanging is pointless)

The story is utter gibberish that contradicts the base game over and over and makes everything you did on Talos 1 feel so pointless. It never explains how the simulation really works and I don't think it knows. Escape plans are cannon, but then they contradict half of the character stories, so which is more cannon? Yu blows up the typhons but then just dies anyway in her escape, why escape when your towers work? Or did she never use the Typhon towers?

The story badly needed some closure and explenation, a sequence you unlock once you have done every objectives that plays the "REAL" simulation, of what actually happened. Idc if you make it the hardcore mode, or a cutceen, just anything. Because as of right now, I know nothing about how this moon event went down, because half of the info contradicts each other.


I bought the DLC because I love Prey and wanted to support the dev, and I am not upset, but I am very much dissapointed. It has some unique and inovative ideas, just like the base game, but unlike the base game it did not stick to its guns and tried way too hard to please everyone. If it had no story and was pure combat, i would have been happier, because like this I am strongly concerned that the Prey universe is going to make no sense anymore.

[RIOT|Stalkermaster]

I think you are right in that it was reworked. I believe it was going to be a traditional story dlc untill the bad Prey Sales cut the budget back which is why it is the way it is

[Connatic]

Originally posted by RIOT|Stalkermaster:

I think you are right in that it was reworked. I believe it was going to be a traditional story dlc untill the bad Prey Sales cut the budget back which is why it is the way it is

I doubt it. These newer game systems would have taken a lot more work than making the level a little bigger, while adding some more lore/story. I'm actually glad they decided to go with an experiemental game mode instead of just a small spin-off story. If they want to continue the Prey story. I'd rather they save it for the sequel, not DLC.

This simply sounds like a balance issue for those Nightmare Prey players that can brute force/speed run to the final objective.

[Coyote]

They should remove the timer and instead just mnake the enemies so hard to kill they are almost sure to kill you.
I am also finding the game waaay too easy after starting with several hundred time loop items and making sure the curruption never goes over level 1.

I would rather have had no death timer at all and instead the enemies become insanely difficult to manage. It would keep the global difficulty in check and also ensure the players who dislike timers to not leave negative reviews about it.

[Animeye]

I'm still playing through, and so far the DLC feels a bit more like a tech demo than a polished DLC. Especially considering this came out alongside a patch adding the various survival options to the main game, it is very odd that this DLC is completely devoid of any options.
Hopefully a future patch will add some sort of 'free play' mode that lets you do things like configure/disable the timer, have have full access to the station, configure some of the RNG elements (such as the power being out).
I definitely applaud Arkane for trying something different in the DLC. I almost wonder if that is their plan: have the main game be a solid narrative experience, and then experiment with things in the DLC to get ideas for how a sequel will work.

[Connatic]

I'm still playing through, and so far the DLC feels a bit more like a tech demo than a polished DLC.

Tech demo? oof... That's a bit unfair. I think at it's worst the game has balance issues and the story is fleshed out enough.

They should remove the timer and instead just mnake the enemies so hard to kill they are almost sure to kill you.

I don't think that would be the way to go. Either it would have the same effect as ending the run by killing you, or would just give the option to "cheese it" and just avoid enemies the whole time.

[Coyote]

Originally posted by Connatic:

I don't think that would be the way to go. Either it would have the same effect as ending the run by killing you, or would just give the option to "cheese it" and just avoid enemies the whole time.

It would have the same effect,yes. That is the point. But not the same cause.
And if they are indeed more difficult to deal with then in theory it should be more difficult to avoid them, especially with the dynamic random nature of everything else added onto it.

Not trying to outright kill the player instantly here, just trying to give them the satisfaction of a meaningful game over as opposed to some lame countdown. There are many people who just hate the idea of being timed to death, me included.

Think of it more as a fetish im not into.

[WonderGoth]

Riley Yu is actually Morgan/Alex's cousin not sister so that's why she's not in the family photo's etc.

As for why the moon-base is never mentioned despite Alex saying one of his communiques to Riley that the moon-base was definitely going to have an outbreak soon if it hadn't already had one.. Hell he didn't expect Riley to survive hense pushing her to upload her consciousness. So yeah it's complete ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ it never got mentioned in Prey (obviously the Moon plot was written after Prey but that just makes it shoddy writing).

It's not a Rogue-lite either... Not when it actually ends and you can no longer play or progress without restarting the entire game. The ability to keep playing and progressing is kind of the defining characteristic of the genre.. I'm hoping it auto-saving before the last 'out of breath' section is a bug and the final auto-save is meant to be in the sim so you can just not complete whoever's last mission and keep going... But I doubt that's the case

Also agreed on the random plotlines and ending. I was expecting a fair bit more detail on the characters in their 'personal quests' rather than 5 minutes of item fetching/running about hitting switches with one 4 second in-game cutscene and maybe 2 voice recordings.. Hell they were so damn short I honestly kept expecting to unlock 'part 2' of their story arcs at some point but no :/...

The best one by far was the engineer she seemed to have a lot more of her story built, mostly by emails though. You also get that lovely statue as a 'reward' for finishing (ok in some ways it's kinda creepy...but lets go with romantic).

The ending was god-awful.. I thought I'd gotten the 'bad ending' then when I loaded and looked around and found the helmet I got excited and thought I could find another solution and a different ending... Nope the infinite air helmet is completely pointless :/ (unless I've missing something?)

[Kob.X]

How long did it took you to complete it?

[Darkfiro]

Well I think i got the story with most of the char (not sure where the old man story start) but the canon escape for the engineer is the Shuttle (unless she never escape or that the pilot neuromod never existed). The Janitor canon escape is the Escape Pod this in turn cause the Head of Security to improvise on his escape by using the Mass Driver (since he spent alot of time in the Crew Annex and would have notice the shuttle (unless the pilot neuromod never existed)). The Director has her own escape but something tell me that she "escape" last. as for the Old man like I said earlier I don't know if he "Escape" first or Before the Head of security reach the tower or After the Head of security escape.

Now this in turn add the question on if the ending (Prey not mooncrash) was really cause by the action of Talos-1. Because if you use the shuttle escape there a mimic outside the shuttle this mimic could latch on the ship when it arrived to earth but like I say it all depend if the pilot neuromod even existed .

And then there the "toy" in the old man story. The "toy" could be a mimic or a mimic egg (I don't know) all I know is the "toy" is a Typhon related thing.

[EQFL_Sapare]

The final safe at the end of the game is 9 hours and 45 min. So I would round it to 10 hours. I was prob a bit above average speed but I certainly didnt rush through it(I made at least a few runs where I did not use sim points to buy anything and for a while refused to use neuromods)

[Dimmie]

I guess I'll put my two cents here too after finally beating the game. Wowie I'm quite a few days late to the party!

To sum it up, I believe none of the escapes were real, except for two.
Director Yu's escape
And Claire's Escape.

I believe that, the 'Story lines' were the real canonical plot of the game. That's really the only way for it to make sense, and would explain why the shuttle was still there.

Nobody truly got off the moon. The method of unlocking their 'Stories' as brief as they are, is what Kasma is assuming they went for. They believed the Engineer attempted to escape via the shuttle, they believed Claire went for an Escape Pod, they KNEW Yu uploaded her own conscious yet weren't 100% sure they killed her, they believed the HoS Bahat tried to go through the warper. However, the Volunteer was an absolute mystery, because- it requires both the Engineer and Claire to make it possible for him to escape which means he NEVER would have escaped.

The way I see it, is this is how it went down:

-Direct Yu contacted Bahat and informed him of the Spy, during this, she was setting up the device to store and send off all the information and Claire was finishing off Bahats security force and was moving on to delete the evidence of her being there.

-Bahat arrives to find the mess of his dead comrades, Claire has long finished destroying the evidence and has finished sabotaging Direct Yu's device so that it kills her, and has made it to an escape pod (Probably the Pythres Labs one). Yu, is in the middle of locating the missing Volunteer to bring back as a Typhon and scan.

-Bahat manages to both scuttle Claire's pod which kills her, and nab the antidote. His body is found in the Moon Works area (I think its always there? Not 100% Sure), either way he died trying to escape and is the only character that is unlocked via finding his corpse, alongside Yu.

-By now Yu has returned and finished downloading the data, she uploads her consciousness via Alex's instructions and is killed by Claire's sabotaging.

-The Engineer is pointless, but Kasma may have thought of her as a 'point of interest' due to being an engineer, donno tbh. She likely never escaped the moon, and died either trying to escape, or having lost it, died whilst trying to finish a statue her lover made for her on a Typhon infested rock.

-The Volunteer at first seems pointless, but his story was the most simple for me to theorize. If you are at corruption level 1, and do his story, it immediately hops to corruption level 4. Meaning during the events that previously transpired have already been LONG over, and he is waking up in his cell. Due to his strangely strong psionic capabilities, he is able to actually remain semi-coherent and not a suicidal mess like most people are when under the Mind Controller's control. He collects a mimic aka his sons 'Toy' and gets on an escape pod, gets his head blown up, dies, and the mimic makes it to earth.

-And lastly, Peter's story. He clearly makes it back home and brings a mimic with him. Of course, from a narrative standpoint bringing a second mimic to earth seems pointless but in the broader range of things, it was likely because the escape pod on the Moon goes to a different area than the shuttle that Peter is on does. So one can see it a like extra plan to invade/Destroy earth.

---

I liked Mooncrash. Does it have replayability? Nooo way. The story is a mess that lacks cohesion and unless you're a weirdo like me who tries to tie strings together, it just.. Won't be appealing. I enjoy crafting theories though. I have to agree with the OP for the most part- even though I like the implications of the story itself rather than detest it. The game really doesn't know what it wants to be.

It isn't worth 20.00$'s, maybe 5-10$'s? But I did have fun playing it. A lot of fun! More than the original Prey- likely because of the Psi Knife which fit my playstyle more accurately. If the original lacked anything it was melee weapons. Anyway, that's all! Toodalooo.

[Highdark]

I just finished the game and I agree pretty much whole heartedly with what y'all saying. It took me 5-6h to beat. I only had one "real" death when i w as figuring out how to kill the moonshark( Dr. Yu psychoshock kills it in like 4 shots and disables its burrow and ranged attacks). I don't think they should have added Time-delays it kinda trivializes the difficulty. The game kind of set it up like there was going to be a difficulty spike, but it just never came. The typhon control towers? Why bother? Going to start a new run to see if anything is new, but I have my doubts. 20$ for 6h def not worth it. A dollar an hour thats how this suppose to work.

[Guizin]

I'm a bit disapointed because I don't think you payed attention to the story. The points you made about the gameplay, I sort of agree with. The timer? I modded it out. Also, I'm not sure if i get it when you say you wanted to beat the game the way it wanted you to. I personally took quite a bit to finish the DLC and I still left a bunch of stuff undiscovered. Now, to the story stuff.
Riley Yu is not Alex's sister. She is his cousin. The stuff about January and Morgan not considering destroying the base is a good point. Perhaps they didn't know the facility was being used to make experiments on the typhon and just thought it was a helium mining facility. I don't know, the game doesn't explain that very well, if at all.
You see, the base isn't really a secret. They mention the pytheas base in the original game in one of the magazines. People know about it. They just don't know about the alien ♥♥♥♥.
And yes, the typhon were brought from Talos I to the Pytheas base, but that was intentional. As I see it, this facility was another base they used to experiment with the typhon, alongside with mining helium-3.
Kasma may not have gained much from the simulation, but that's hindsight 20/20, isn't it?
I mean, if you have an operator with vast information about the decline of a facility belonging to your main rival, I'm sure it would be in their interest to get the data. If they didn't gain anything from it, well... That's their problem.
Besides, Kasma never intended to save you. They were going to kill you once you completed your contract anyways. Basilisk did what she could on her end to help you out.
And maybe the engineer didn't leave at all and was transformed into a phantom. You can actually use a security terminal to track everyone down, so in my next playthrough I'll try to find her body.
I think it was a decent point you made about Peter not knowing how to fly a shuttle.
As for the mimic double, well, in the simulation there is always a mimic in the back of the shuttle. ALWAYS. So my theory is that Peter, in a hurry to leave, forgot about the mimic (or didn't think it was there), got jumped by it and died.
The crash on the moon was not really suicidal, was it? It was likely the only chance Peter had to escape death. I mean, if he was suicidal he'd just let himself run out of oxygen, no?
The escape plans are not necessarily cannon either, except for Riley Yu, which wasn't really a escape plan, it was a safety net to insure that even if she died, her mind would still go on.
Unfortunately for her, she got zapped into oblivion and the data operator was captured by kasma. ♥♥♥♥.

[Kilopede]

the game does become too easy at the end, just do an initial run with the engineer and clear things out/ fix the portal. I really didnt like how the portal requires 2 people to fix it, the game also gives away claire being a spy really quickly once you see the engineer doesnt have hacking. though it would have been fun if she had no abilties and struggled to survive. I supect if you removed neuromods and time delay loops from the sim screen the difficulty curve would be better

Also at what point do find out Peter doesn't know how to fly a shuttle, I don't think the game ever says or implies he can't, in addition we know there ia a conectome for piloting present on the base so even if he didnt he can find it easily. Is there really a mimic at the back of the shuttle? I never encountered it, despite going in the room all the time to nab the fruit, does it just stay hidden and is only detectable with Riley's upgraded pychoscope?

I believe the game suggested running the sims was a way of decrypting the data in the beggining, we do know there is more info on the operator, riley's mind and lots of other data.

Personally I liked the additional story, and especially Riley's comments on Alex failing upward but it needs some work for replayability. Like the access to the harvester fuel ops in moonworks, you read the email to find out the guy left his keycard and tracking bracelet in a harvester and once you retrive it for access you get a golden crate and thats about it, damn things are everywhere wasnt really worth it.

[EQFL_Sapare]

Reply to Guizin:
Strangely enough, there are records of people refering to the pytheas moon base before this DLC was ever announced or hinted at. So this book in question must exist and you are right that it is not secret. As someone who played a lot of the the base Prey game I am severly confused why the base would never be refered to outside of one of the (often repeated) fluff books, that feels like a heavy omision in its own right, but that does make it a flaw of the base game.

Is Morgan's cousin ever eluded to in the base game? If this had simply been set up more forthright in the base game I would be more forgiving.

And I do get that the typhon were on the moon base all along, but it is never established how they broke containtment symotaniously. I still believe the implication is that the shuttle brought some mimics(because otherwise idk why there are so many corpses by the shuttle) from Talos 1. Eitherway, it really doesnt matter where the containment broke, it matters that somehow the typhon gates seem to do absolutly nothing.

The remark of 20/20 hinsight doesnt make for a compelling game. I payed for and played through a campaign where literarly everyone wasted my time, no one escaped, the main character died, and the evil korp didnt even learn anything? Don't write a plot that has no point, much less charge for it.

I am aware Kasma never intended to save you, but why? Outside of "HUHUH we so evil" it makes no sense. Talso 1 did not intentionally sabotage its escape pods(correct me if I am wrong) because they felt like it would be fun to kill their assets. The hacker is obviously skilled and did his job, this video game trope of corperations killing its assets is so chewed out and dull. (mind, they do try to exterminate everyone on Talos 1 and I know that, but that is WAY after things got out of hand, and even then, not ordered by anyone on Talos 1, it comes over as being detached from the human element.)

Peter dying at the end, as stated above, just makes everything feel extremely hollow and like a waste of my time. The game never deserved the "twist", because it gave me nothing else in trade. And the mimic as shown in the end sceen doesnt even attack him, it just copies his 1 of a kind doll, because reasons.

And the crash by all rigthts is suicide, the fact that peter doesnt die (nor even break his space suit) by crashing from ORBIT into solid moon rock just breaks all suspension of disbelieve and was utterly unessasiry, because as established, he dies anyway. This is something from a cheesy action movie(Hello indian jones and fridge), not the same game where going 8 m/s in space means you smash your head into talos 1 and die.



Reply to Kilopede:

It is never stated he doesnt know how to fly a shuttle, but why in the world would he? He is a hacker, not a space pilot. only 1 person(2 with neurmods) on Pythean knew how to fly a shuttle, and non of the characters alive on Talso 1 did. If people who live in space and are highly educated don't know how to do it(including engineers), its hard to assume some random earthling hacker would.

I find it hard to believe that Peter found a neuromod, and the specific scematic on a base overrun by typhon, then made it to the shuttle. Not impossible, but being the game refuses to explain what happened, certainly too much of a stretch for me.

I don't know if there is ALWAYS a mimic in the very back of the ship, but it is there at least the majority of times, in the very rear behind the door, usually with a gold(I think) chest. That said, it never leaves that compartment and as stated above, I dont see this explaining the ending at all.

But runing the decrypton of the data seems pretty pointless if you are just going to destroy the shuttle and the operator holding it after you are done. And I refuse to believe that this info can just be send by wifi or else there is no reason for Riley Yu to even create the operator, just send herself and the data straight to earth.

Again, not impossible, but its written so clunky that if I was to accept the "wifi" answer then so many other problem arise.

Also, this is purely subjective, but I don't like the representation of Alex as a failure. He was a very complex and symathetic character in the base game by the end of it all and while certainly flawed, he and all Yu's are still supposed to be geniuses. If anything, it make Riley come over as bitter and someone to shift the blame for her own mistakes.