Arkane PREY - Arkane's immersive coffee cup transformation sim - now with Mooncrash roguelike mode DLC

[Trithne]

Questions for others playing:
If I leave a bunch of stuff in a container for the next character, will it stay there between characters? (obviously not between resets). I know pre-placed stuff stays, not sure about things I drop.
Bhatia's corpse seems to have been in two separate places for me on different runs, is this right? First in Moonworks, then Labs.
Fabrication plans you've collected determine what you can buy at the beginning with sim points, is this right?

No idea about the first two but I'll be checking the first one later tonight.

The fab plans => sim point purchases is correct, yes.

 

[PrettyDeadman]

I am reallly enjoying this DLC.

This is a superb way to introduce dlc into a finished game.

Seems a bit too easty to grind though...

Level design is interesting!

If this doesn't sell well all hopes for modern gamers should be estinguished.

A lot of posers in this thread posing as "hardcore" gamesrs yet hating on this game. Such decline!

 

[<3sRichardSimmons]

Yeah it’s a great DLC. Once again, a bunch of shitposters are showing off why we can’t have nice things.

 

[Alienman]

Oil monsters. That is all.

 

[Israfael]

If I leave a bunch of stuff in a container for the next character, will it stay there between characters? (obviously not between resets). I know pre-placed stuff stays, not sure about things I drop.
Bhatia's corpse seems to have been in two separate places for me on different runs, is this right? First in Moonworks, then Labs.
Fabrication plans you've collected determine what you can buy at the beginning with sim points, is this right?

1) yes it remains where you dropped the items, can be crucisl for things like escape pod chip / mods
2) corpses get randomized, i think - i got flight modchip corpse both in moonworks and the labs
3) yes, not sure about temp schematics

 

[Arnust]

 

[RoSoDude]

@RoSoDude#6732 no limited fabrication licenses? Can we still spam neuromods/ammo from recycling? Yes you mentioned the wep degradation hinders this behaviour, but is it still possible nonetheless? What about suit repair kits, are they actually relevant now...I am assuming they double as wep repair kits?

Thumbs up to Bethesda/Arkane. I actually did not expect them to go ahead and make the core game better and more "hardcore" a.k.a make it more of an actual game (they did nothing of the sort with Dishonored after all, which needs it the most). I hope they are rewarded for this, financially/sales/reception-wise.

As Israfael notes, it's Spare Parts, and each one repairs 25/35/50% condition depending on your Repair skill. I'm currently swimming in them, but I don't even know why I'm carrying them around since I'm going to avoid Engineer/Security entirely (unless I max out the other trees). I've been using my weapons extremely sparingly, but their degradation has already caused me to swap copies several times, especially since the weapons you find lying around (in the beginning, at least) are rarely above 50% condition, and often start at 25%. Just did some testing, and here are my findings:

A 100% condition Shotgun can fire 200 rounds before breaking
A 100% condition Pistol can fire 500 rounds before breaking
A 100% condition GLOO gun can fire 500 rounds before breaking (each clip is 42 rounds, for reference, this is actually damn quick if you use the GLOO a lot to freeze enemies)
A 100% condition Disruptor Stun Gun can discharge 5000% before breaking (recall each shot takes 25% so this is really 200 shots)
Don't have the Q-Beam, can't test it
The Huntress Boltcaster doesn't degrade (aww)

Someone who's actually speccing into Repair and using their weapons a lot should let me know how impact this system has been for them. I'm playing a rather self-restricted playstyle, so it's possible I'm overstating its impact. What could potentially be a balancing feature is at least that you can't directly craft Spare Parts, and you have to spec into Dismantle to be able to retrieve them from Operators or to obtain them by dismantling weapons. Thus, Spare Parts may actually be a valuable commodity for someone repairing a lot of turrets and using their weapons a lot. As for Suit Repair Kits, well, you definitely need to keep those on hand in case you take a lot of damage in space (if you're below 50% you'll start leaking oxygen). I wish it were a O2 loss rate which depended linearly on your current suit condition (so maybe no loss at 100%), because I haven't yet had to worry about it -- however, I haven't done much space combat yet, so maybe it'll really get down to the wire later on in the game.

You can still spam Neuromods and ammo as you please, and I've certainly been doing the former. I've still yet to experience much of the trauma system, but having to carry around a cleanser for each trauma makes inventory management a bit more of a concern, and would in theory also hog some crafting resources to keep them stocked. I'm legitimately considering bumping the difficulty down to Normal and trying to play without any significant quicksaving (since the difficulty modifiers aren't actually that meaningful). On Hard the combat is still extremely binary, and dying in 2-3 hits just incentivizes me to drop a save before every encounter as before, which simply isn't very fun or interesting. I wonder if I could try to mirror the new Mooncrash DLC (which I figure uses Normal's 100% received/taken modifiers?), drop a save at the beginning of an area, and try to live with my mistakes. This would make resource management much more meaningful, since I'd actually have to live with traumas and use my medkits and hypos, which would in turn make crafting more important. Really, I wish Prey had a (hardcore) respawning system, so dying could still be penalized without making you run around hoarding stuff all over again.

Also, based on your guys' impressions I think I'm going to purchase the DLC for full price, a supremely rare occurrence for me. Gotta put my money where my mouth is and show support for a more prestigious vision, especially since I've been enjoying a free update for a game that I bought on sale and as an Immersive Sim/Shocklike junkie I'm the target audience for it. It sounds like the DLC actually hardcore as fuck too, with permadeath (but 5 chances), a steady difficulty curve, and incentives to really learn the layouts and play optimally under a time constraint. Still not sure about the roguelite elements and overall replayability, but I've heard the map is actually rather large and it's not likely to get old as fast as some have claimed.

 

[toro]

Yeah it’s a great DLC. Once again, a bunch of shitposters are showing off why we can’t have nice things.

Striped top hat mimic
Bamboo hat mimic
Bucket mimic
Propeller mimic
Witch hat mimic
Medieval mimic

Please do enjoy the incline.

 

[ciox]

Been trying survival mode, my gloo cannon doesn't jam or break no matter what I do even at 0% integrity, it just loses the ammo counter at about 9% integrity?
Also I ragequit when I spacewalked with 74% suit integrity and saw this:

 

[RoSoDude]

Been trying survival mode, my gloo cannon doesn't jam or break no matter what I do even at 0% integrity, it just loses the ammo counter at about 9% integrity?
Also I ragequit when I spacewalked with 74% suit integrity and saw this:

Really? Must be a bug, since I swear I remember seeing someone retrieve the old jam animations and the GLOO gun was included...

Also, for real, it should scale with your current suit integrity. Otherwise you have little incentive to care about either suit integrity or oxygen levels.

EDIT: ciox you got a bug, bro

 

[<3sRichardSimmons]

Yeah it’s a great DLC. Once again, a bunch of shitposters are showing off why we can’t have nice things.

Striped top hat mimic
Bamboo hat mimic
Bucket mimic
Propeller mimic
Witch hat mimic
Medieval mimic

Please do enjoy the incline.

I hadn’t seen that before. That is indeed some derp, but in fairness, even Shakespeare put in plenty of stuff to keep the groundlings happy.

 

[HanoverF]

It would be a fine DLC at 9.99. It seems like it's priced as it is to gouge sucker fanboys and make the digital deluxe seem like a bargain.

 

[ciox]

Been trying survival mode, my gloo cannon doesn't jam or break no matter what I do even at 0% integrity, it just loses the ammo counter at about 9% integrity?
Also I ragequit when I spacewalked with 74% suit integrity and saw this:

Really? Must be a bug, since I swear I remember seeing someone retrieve the old jam animations and the GLOO gun was included...

Also, for real, it should scale with your current suit integrity. Otherwise you have little incentive to care about either suit integrity or oxygen levels.

EDIT: ciox you got a bug, bro

No idea what I could do about that bug, except start a new game.

And let's not mess around, to have some real interaction with this mechanic the air loss formula should be: NormalAirLoss + (NormalAirLoss * (1 - SuitIntegrity)), Where SuitIntegrity scales from 0 to 1, so you go from x1 to x2 at zero suit integrity.
The infinite air state when at full condition would possibly be balanced as an advanced neuromod or something.
Maybe mods can do this.

 

[Israfael]

It seems like it's priced as it is to gouge sucker fanboys and make the digital deluxe seem like a bargain.

It's fairly long and replayable for a DLC, I already clocked around 14 hours and I still have 1 NPC to unlock and 4 stories to do. Some areas are inaccessible, although with some creative thinking you can get into some of the key-locked areas (like the fab room in the moonworks). Also, for people who hate timers, there's hourglass recipe so you can basically spam it in-game and in the menu(1500 points each) to remove any time constraints. It actually turns the game back into slow exploration mode with limited resources (all extra mats will go to the timespam) instead of hectic rogue lite.

On the other hand, there's another timer to consider - the station gets more derelict with each reset, first you get some cave ins and fires (radiation/water/electro), then some sections get off the grid (can be repaired in the central hub) / 02 issues (have not yet experienced that, but the troll "what's new" message already said that it'd be so.

 

[Talby]

Does anyone know if dropped/stored items remain persistent for that run? I already discovered you can loot the corpse of your dead characters, dunno if you can just dump a stash of items and pick them up with someone else though.

 

[RoSoDude]

I did the unthinkable -- I bumped the difficulty down to Normal and am now playing without savescumming of any kind. Honestly, it's much more interesting, as compared with my Nightmare run which was the classic "die and quickload until you finally don't" schtick for pretty much every fight. The latter was more mechanically trying, to be sure, but lacked any tension and the resource economy goes out the window since your run is composed of the "perfect tries" with no mistakes. This way, I have a lot to lose by dying, so I actually use my medkits and switch to my shotgun when things get hairy. I'm already noticing a difference in how much I need to craft more resources. The autosaves are also more reasonably placed than I had expected (I had thought they were only on map transition and goal completion, but it seems a bit more forgiving than that). For anyone currently gagging at this entire notion, I invite you to look upon the difficulty modifiers yourself and decide if savescummed Nightmare mode is actually a more hardcore experience than infrequently checkpointed Normal difficulty, which I'd argue actually forces you to contend with the game systems since they're built to enforce more granular consequences for failure like other Immersive Sims (and with the latter more similar to the semi-permadeath design of the DLC). Half-assed combat modifiers are no way to design a proper difficulty setting in this type of game, anyway.

Fun story -- I was methodically clearing out the cafeteria in the Crew Quarters, and decided to obtain the next rank of Psychoshock (hey, that would have been a better name for this game) to prepare for my fight with the Telepath. This entailed the crossing of a threshold, apparently, as I was instantly greeted by the message telling me the Nightmare was now after my sorry ass. In fear I looked for an exit, unsure of just how much progress I stood to lose by dying, but found the shadowy beast had already entered the room. I played a game of chicken with it around a pillar and made my escape back into the lobby, hastily deciding to sequester myself in the room with the Medical Operator. This turned out to be a bad move, as it left me even more trapped. I made a desperate attempt to fight it off with my psi powers and my shotgun, but I was in too small a room to make good use of Kinetic Blast, and Psychoshock's cooldown did me no favors. It was in this frustrating death that I learned the autosaves weren't all that bad, happily. My old run had none of the same thrilling fear for my life. I think I might actually appreciate what they were going for with the Nightmare now, even if it's still a bit clunky.

 

[Israfael]

Does anyone know if dropped/stored items remain persistent for that run?

Yes they do, already said that. Also, you can just stash the items onto the companion robot (which even has a "MULE" label slapped on it), complete the run with one char, switch to the other and get all that loot on the new NPC. I even have a funny story related to that - I completed setting everything up as engineer, moved all my elite weaponry, hourglasses, mods and ammo to the robot, switched to the officer guy, collected everything, got to the launch pod, started the sequence... Only when I got inside it, I realized I forgot to dump 20x hourglases and other stuff back into the robot. Insta ~40k points loss

 

[PrettyDeadman]

What robot are you talking about? Where is it stationed?

 

[Israfael]

What robot are you talking about? Where is it stationed?

You get it after the second 'crash' (probably 2 npcs escaped in total), along with the mimic pet (it's a spell, not a thing), you can summon it anywhere like any typhon power. It's free and enabled on all chars.

 

[PrettyDeadman]

What robot are you talking about? Where is it stationed?

You get it after the second 'crash' (probably 2 npcs escaped in total), along with the mimic pet (it's a spell, not a thing), you can summon it anywhere like any typhon power. It's free and enabled on all chars.

I've escaped with 2 npcs several times and completed 1 personal quest (engineer), don't think i've got second crash yet. Must be something else. Probably need to unlock more characters.

 

[Israfael]

First one is where you get the corruption timer / 2 npcs, and in the second one gravity is disabled and you have to enable it manually (in your pod). Third crash did not change anything substantially except adding some new 'enhancements' to the simulation (like O2 venting)

 

[Master]

I did the unthinkable -- I bumped the difficulty down to Normal and am now playing without savescumming of any kind. Honestly, it's much more interesting, as compared with my Nightmare run which was the classic "die and quickload until you finally don't" schtick for pretty much every fight. The latter was more mechanically trying, to be sure, but lacked any tension and the resource economy goes out the window since your run is composed of the "perfect tries" with no mistakes. This way, I have a lot to lose by dying, so I actually use my medkits and switch to my shotgun when things get hairy. I'm already noticing a difference in how much I need to craft more resources. The autosaves are also more reasonably placed than I had expected (I had thought they were only on map transition and goal completion, but it seems a bit more forgiving than that). For anyone currently gagging at this entire notion, I invite you to look upon the difficulty modifiers yourself and decide if savescummed Nightmare mode is actually a more hardcore experience than infrequently checkpointed Normal difficulty, which I'd argue actually forces you to contend with the game systems since they're built to enforce more granular consequences for failure like other Immersive Sims (and with the latter more similar to the semi-permadeath design of the DLC). Half-assed combat modifiers are no way to design a proper difficulty setting in this type of game, anyway.

Fun story -- I was methodically clearing out the cafeteria in the Crew Quarters, and decided to obtain the next rank of Psychoshock (hey, that would have been a better name for this game) to prepare for my fight with the Telepath. This entailed the crossing of a threshold, apparently, as I was instantly greeted by the message telling me the Nightmare was now after my sorry ass. In fear I looked for an exit, unsure of just how much progress I stood to lose by dying, but found the shadowy beast had already entered the room. I played a game of chicken with it around a pillar and made my escape back into the lobby, hastily deciding to sequester myself in the room with the Medical Operator. This turned out to be a bad move, as it left me even more trapped. I made a desperate attempt to fight it off with my psi powers and my shotgun, but I was in too small a room to make good use of Kinetic Blast, and Psychoshock's cooldown did me no favors. It was in this frustrating death that I learned the autosaves weren't all that bad, happily. My old run had none of the same thrilling fear for my life. I think I might actually appreciate what they were going for with the Nightmare now, even if it's still a bit clunky.

Well of course everything is better without savescuming. Please tell me you didn't play videogames like that up until this point? But the thing is, even autosaving sucks. And saving in general may in fact be the greatest degenerate mechanic ever, because it allows every casual to play and beat the game, eventually. Otherwise only true Ubermenschen like us would be able to do it.

 

[Zakhad]

First one is where you get the corruption timer / 2 npcs, and in the second one gravity is disabled and you have to enable it manually (in your pod).

I had the second crash, but somehow missed this, I think Bug? Or is this also randomised...

edit: it's the third intervention/crash, not the second, where the gravity cuts out, I just got it.

 

[Infinitron]

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/20...ng-amount-to-do-in-a-deceptively-small-space/

Prey: Mooncrash offers a surprising amount to do in a deceptively small space

Prey: Mooncrash is a game of refinement. It’s a piece of DLC that uses an economy of space by asking you to replay the same sprawling collection of areas repeatedly, with varying characters, varying skillsets, and an ever-changing threat to combat. It’s a game that will make you play Prey differently than you have before, and you’ll be grateful of it.

You begin in a simulation room, under vague circumstances, tasked with fixing a couple of bits and bobs to get the simulator running. That done, you’re in, and playing as one of five characters you’ll gradually unlock, attempting to escape from a devastated moon base overrun by Prey’s gang of alien antagonists.

To do this, you’ll use all of Prey’s weaponry and tactics, plus some that are either new, or I never found them in the main game. Gloo bombs, for instance, as a cousin of the Gloo gun. And each character is designed to best exploit a different aspect of Prey’s paraphernalia, with unique skill trees to expand.

There are five different ways to escape the moon base, from the super-simple escape pod route you’ll aim to reach on your first run, to far more elaborate means such as launching a rocket, which, well, requires you to know how to fly a rocket. And as you explore the really sizeable number of locations on offer here, you’ll gather new information, new key cards, and be able to exploit your skills in specific ways.

Die – and you will die – and you start over. Either from scratch if you’ve run out of survivors to play as, or picking up with the next character to continue on in the simulation in the state you left it. The ultimate goal of the game is to get all five characters to leave the base using all five methods, in a single run.

But that’s going to take a lot of playing before it’s possible. First you’re going to have to work out how to unlock all the characters, then how to reach all the escape routes, and then get each character powered up enough with upgrades and Psi options such that it is possible. And to do that, you’re going to need to run each character a few times.

Upgrades last over death, and even resets of the simulation. (In fact, “reset” is a pretty inaccurate term here, since the sim maintains many of the changes you’ll have caused through repeated plays. For an early example, you begin the first time in a small room heavily staffed by disguised mimics, but on further plays that’s all cleared out and the door’s opened, so saves the tedium of repeating the same simple actions each time.) As indeed do fabrication plans (items you can make in the fabricators), and the sim points you gain. These are used to buy items from previous runs to have in your inventory at the start of the next.

This is a neat device, meaning you don’t need to start with a measly wrench each time out, but rather can equip yourself with a couple of decent weapons, some repairs, and even spend a fortune on some neuromods. Then there are chipsets, more minor upgrades, that require repurchasing from your gathered pool each time. But, of course, also means you can’t spam the game, as you need to earn more sim points to be able to do this each time. Such points are earned mostly just by playing – discoveries, kills, repairs, and so on.

The result is a sort of first-person metroidvania roguelite, if you’ll forgive such extravagances. As you charge about trying to stay alive, you’ll find computers that require level three hacking, or machines needing a level three repair, and such abilities are another 8 neuromods away from level two. You note them down for later attempts, as you keep replaying these locations.

And if that concerns you, you worry you’ll get too used to the same places, even with the variety it offers, then I have two responses. First, I’ve been playing it a load, and despite assuming the same, it hasn’t happened yet. And secondly, multiplayer games. Mooncrash’s reuse of the same spaces with differing characters is a single-player rendering of that familiar multiplayer notion, where the spaces are interesting enough when combined with the changes in enemies, enemy placements, and tools available, to sustain it.

And, like multiplayer gaming, a good deal of Mooncrash is about perfecting your skills within that environment. While you won’t know what enemies you’ll face where in any given run, you’ll start to learn your way around the labyrinthine base, and be able to pick your route more deliberately, exploiting shortcuts and hideouts you’ve learned.

But what’s absolutely smartest about Mooncrash is how it requires you to play as those five different characters. Because it’s forcing me to play a single-player first-person-me-do in ways I usually avoid. Like anyone, there are ways I lean to in any immersive sim, preferring stealth, hacking and repairing over bombs and run-n-gun bravado. But here, as you play each archetype, you’re required to change your play-style accordingly. It’s making me approach Prey’s world in a way I haven’t before, and that’s refreshing and interesting.

I must say, I’ve yet to care a jot about the plot. Lots of work has gone in, as you’d expect from Arkane, with emails and notes and recordings and fragmented remains of banter, and the voice acting is superb. But I’ve yet to find a single bit of it interesting enough to remember. I do wish this were more engaging, such that it became another prong to motivate replaying.

It’s still pretty infuriating that it peculiarly features two loading screens, one after the other, each time you change areas. The only other issue I’ve faced is some proper framerate issues in the game’s initial simulation room, but once out of there it ran smoothly at 60fps.

Mooncrash also introduces some of the new optional content for the main game, including weapon degradation, and specific body traumas that then need to be healed. The former is a bit of a naff inconvenience, really. For no discernible reason, your guns get worn out at an astonishing pace through use (I don’t know anything about guns, but I’m pretty sure they last more than a day). The traumas are more interesting. Get injured in particular ways and you’re hobbled until addressed. Sometimes this limits how much health can be restored, but more interestingly, it might mean you can’t sprint or jump without incurring further injury, forcing you to quickly adapt how you play in that moment.

I’m still going with this, crashing and sneaking and leaping and flailing through the interconnecting sectors, and being absolutely properly terrified of the new Moonshark monstrosity that haunts the central hub. Whether it will hold my attentions long enough to persist to try to get all five off the base in a single run seems a lot less likely, but I’m having a great time for now.

Mooncrash is an enormous paddling pool compared to Prey’s Olympic swimming pool. There’s none of the depth, but it’s a heck of a good time to splash around in.

Prey: Mooncrash is out now on Windows, for £13/$20/20€, via Steam – it requires the full version of Prey

 

[RoSoDude]

Well of course everything is better without savescuming. Please tell me you didn't play videogames like that up until this point? But the thing is, even autosaving sucks. And saving in general may in fact be the greatest degenerate mechanic ever, because it allows every casual to play and beat the game, eventually. Otherwise only true Ubermenschen like us would be able to do it.

I've long been aware of the degeneracy of Save Anywhere and its deleterious effects on player incentives. I used to play games like that but came to realize that not only was there scant challenge on offer if you savescum, but also that it completely sapped any enjoyment out of games and destroyed most of their systems. Checkpoint saving is the proper alternative, though, not permadeath (I'm talking about losing a single character file in a 30 hour game from e.g. 4 Mimick attacks or a single electrocution, not something intelligent like XCOM or this new roguelite mode). The latter encourages degeneracy in its own right, as any risky play is heavily discouraged in favor of only the most safe and boring tactics, usually exposing the game's weakest points and cheesiest options in play. Neither extreme is interesting nor conducive to the designer implementing deep, challenging gameplay.

The only reason I had played on Nightmare before with liberal quicksaving is because I had figured
A. The autosaves were too infrequent to rely on, and the rarity of encounters would entail repetition of 10 minutes of comparatively mindless activity (scavenging) before fighting that lone phantom patrolling the main corridor again
B. The game probably needed the bump in challenge to hold my interest since the systems seemed gutted
I now know I was wrong about point A, and I also feel differently about point B - the degree to which this is due to the Survival Mode options is unclear. Regardless, I can firmly recommend my chosen settings for anyone bored of mashing the quickload key as I was. You'll actually feel a bit of that fear and dread you were missing, feel greater impact from the hoarding and resource management you've been doing, and actually lose out on quite a bit of tedium if you're willing to just accept your mistakes and use items to recover from them.