I have been playing Prey’s ambitious Mooncrash DLC obsessively lately. Oh, sure, I know I am the target audience here, as the world’s number one Prey fan. Along with Rob, I called Prey my Game of the Year last year. It beat out stiff competition for its ambitious storytelling, impressive level design, and truly deep approach to immersive sim mechanics.
I was playing as the security officer Vijay Bhatia and was trying to escape the base via the mass driver. This involves stocking a storage container with food,water, and an anti-rad item. I had scrounged enough food and water for the journey, but I could not find the anti-rad anywhere. I began scouring the base searching for an anti-rad as the corruption grew higher and higher. In a last act of desperation I abandoned the mass driver plan and made a mad dash for the escape shuttle, John Wick-ing my way with the trusty shotgun past the hordes of typhon at corruption level 5. I passed the security checkpoint. The shuttle bridge was clear of typhon. Just 5 more seconds and I’m out…and the simulation collapsed, kicking me back out to start again.
Mooncrash is extremely good.
There’s a lot to love about this game:
An extra layer of arcadeyness layered on the Prey system, a little message on your hud ChaChinging you some Simpoints every time you kill typhon or find a cool item.
Trying to figure your way around obstacles and realizing the game makers have actually put multiple solutions in place (like the original Prey) . Example: the Typhon Gates, which become more and more a problem as the game goes on either a moon shark is on your ass or you have enough typhon material in your body to not pass. The game tells you early on that the gates are weak to electricity, so you figure out all the ways to get some electric on those gates. Including weapons with the new electric attributes, which actually work on the gates! Or just go to a junction box and cut power to the whole area to shut the gates down, which comes with its own problems…
All the little things which are a joy to discover, and the interwoven narrative bits, some of which revealed game mechanics I hadn’t realized like what the heck those “typhon towers” were for
Or, figuring out that you can put hats on your mimic pets! Skins on your floating treasure box friends! Speaking of, any items you put in them can be accessed by the other characters in a run!
Why y’all got to make me want this so bad when I already have ALL THE GAMES to play?!
lol same. I’ve barely started base Prey and now they put out this amazing thing. FML (but not really!)
I seriously put in 15+ hours, finished it, and didn’t even know about that last thing.
I’ve seen Prey on sale a handful of times over the past year, thinking, yeah, I should probably pick it up, immersive sims have always been my jam…and then I don’t. But this is going to get me to pull the trigger. The next time Prey is on sale, I’m diving in.
I seriously broke my leg for the first time…with Vijay…on the run I described…at that same jump. Though my mistake was attempting the jump without the jetpack and missing.
Speaking of which, can I just say that the added status effects, oxygen meter, and weapon degradation are awesome additions that increase tension and help temper the player empowerment in fun ways? I am not always a big survival game guy, but I am considering playing through the main game again with the survival mechanics.
Oh, and one more bit of praise, that gap in the bridge you mentioned? It isn’t always there. The fact that the environment changes between runs while still maintaining great design and feeling hand crafted is just yet another way in which I think Mooncrash is something special.
Does Mooncrash still have the eye needle stuff? Literally the one reason I will never play Prey.
unfortunately it has one instance of it, yeah. there’s a specific neuromod you need to install to get one of the endings, and installing that triggers the needle cutscene. sorryyy. 
Bummer, but thanks for letting me know. Sorry Danielle if you’re reading this!
In both Mooncrash and the main game, the animation plays a maximum of one time (the first usage, which can be avoided in the main game). If you’ve seen it in trailers, that’s the extent of its presence.
Everything I’ve heard and read about this game makes me want to play it really bad. I loved most all of Prey, and the idea of a dynamically shifting version of it excites me a lot. My biggest concern, actually, is that I might just have trouble running it and fitting it on my computer. My computer isn’t particularly strong and I’ve been meaning to build a rig, but I was able to play Prey on Low settings with manageable performance. I can’t wait to get into it!
There was an article Kirk McKeand put out on VG247 that actually gives me a lot of excitement; I am absolutely a save-scummer and get myself into weird patterns in immersive sims. Which has always frustrated me immensely, because one of my favorite parts of these games is the wide range of systemic agency they provide… I just can’t help myself. I’ve been thinking a lot that a Rogue-lite or Souls-like system of death would help me be more creative and get into those toy boxes. I also think the character/class system will keep me from wanting to spread out my points and become a jack of all trades but master of none. Can’t wait to play this.
Also, will Danielle be streaming this at some point? I would love to see her play! 
So I started playing Mooncrash after just finishing Prey, and my goodness do I agree with that article. I also played the main game cautiously, save-scumming my way through, re-loading a lot of situations that went sideways (particularly in the early game, when you just don’t have the resources to deal with the Typhon).
And Mooncrash solves that so well. I had a run last night playing as the engineer, trying to get to the escape shuttle. For that, you have to find an item that gives you the skills to pilot the shuttle, then find a neuromod to implant those skills. After finding the skill in one area of the base, I had to go back to where the shuttle was and go down a lift to get to where there was a recycler and a fabricator. Unfortunately, as I was about to go down the lift, the corruption level rose to 3, and there was a thermal phantom and two thermal mimics waiting for me.
In Prey, I would have likely re-loading, prepped myself better knowing that there were some nasty enemies down there, and approached it more stealthily. But that wasn’t an option. I took some damage, came close to dying, but was able to shotgun the mimics, throw a nullwave at the phantom, and took it down with my last shotgun shells. I had almost no health left, and no more medkits. The spring to the fabricator, to using the new neuromod, to sprinting back up to the shuttle was a tense adrenaline rush that I don’t think I ever felt during the main game.
So in conclusion, Mooncrash just might be the best thing I’ve played this year.
