We’re progressed quite a way into the simulation, already completing one character story and unlocking over half of our playable cast. And in doing so, we’re begun to wrap our heads around what happened at TranStars Moonbase Facility.
Let us continue our simulation, that we may arrive even closer to the truth.
Thumbnail by Sam Callahan.
Most modern roguelikes have some form of long-term progression so that over the course of all the player’s runs, they are still getting a sense of accomplishment to drive them forward. Taking inspiration from them, Prey: Mooncrash is no exception.
The most obvious one is the KASMA orders that denote our long-term goals. In order to complete the game, we need to complete all 27 orders, that encompass the data points our clients at the KASMA corporation are asking us to steal from the simulation. It helps to have something like this in the game because it guides the player on what they’re expected to do and how they might best direct their attention. Even if I were to leave and not play Mooncrash for several months, I can always the KASMA orders to know exactly what I need to work towards and where I left off.
And outside of that, there are also things that carry over between runs, like Neuromods. One of the smartest decisions made in the creation of Mooncrash was splitting up Morgan’s upgrade list from the base game across multiple characters, each getting their own specialties within the tree. Something that players will notice, especially if they try New Game Plus, is that Morgan starts to become supernaturally good at every possible discipline and skill, trivializing almost every obstacle that comes in their way. By diving the skill tree up, each character has situations that they are uniquely suited to solving, and those that they struggle with. It forces players to adapt and change up playstyle in a way the base game fails to. Even smarter, the Neuromods that unlock those skills persist between runs, so as we keep progressing we grow more and more capable, scaling along with the dangers that we face.
Our other method to stay one step ahead is through the fabrication plans and chipsets we acquire. Like Neuromods, these also persist between runs, but not in quite the same way. For almost every action we can take on our run, from defeating enemies and acquiring passwords/keycards to successfully completing KASMA orders and escape attempts, we receive SimPoints. Using these, we can pay to have characters begin with any items we have the fabrication plans for, and any chipsets we have already acquired. This is why I was so happy to get the Neuromod plan so early on. With it, we can just pay SimPoints to buy permanent enhancements to our characters’ abilities.
Thanks to all of these systems, even a completely botched run is likely to result in some measure of progress that will contribute to long-term success, if not in knowledge of the map, then in SimPoints that we can spend on useful upgrades to our team and their kits.
It’s another really smart series of design decisions by Arkane.
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