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.

The season of Wrath comes to an end, with one last Elusive Target. The Fugitive may have escaped justice, but he cannot escape us. Let us do what the law could not.

Thumbnail by Sam Callahan.

I must admit that I am bummed that Wrath is the grand finale for the Seven Deadly Sins. It doesn’t really capture the essence of wrath, but it doesn’t capture the essence of Hitman either. If anything, The Mills Reverie works better as the embodiment of Wrath than The Wrath Termination.

As for the target, I don’t really have a whole lot to say about it. I did it once, and I did it again.

I’ve had a desire to play this DLC on the channel for a while now because it’s still one of the most fascinating genre blends I have ever seen. It might have even stayed on the backlist if it weren’t for the release of Deathloop. As it stands, I really want to run Deathloop on stream. However, it would feel wrong to do that without first touching Mooncrash.

I don’t believe the developers have stated as much, but I personally think Prey: Mooncrash is a spiritual predecessor to Deathloop. It’s possible to play one without playing the other, but it doesn’t feel right to.

So let’s begin.

Thumbnail by Sam Callahan.

When I first heard about this DLC, I was skeptical. I didn’t think immersive sim gameplay would work with the structure of a roguelike. The former is predicated on the idea that levels and encounters are tightly designed so that any build should be capable of winning, even if other builds will be better equipped. The latter is predicated on leveraging RNG and procedural generation to make each individual run feel unique, unlike any other.

While these seemed like (at least to me) fundamentally opposing principals, the reality is that the two styles are a match made in heaven. The overall map layout remains largely static, which gives the player a sense of mastery over the space as they continue to make attempts at the simulation. And yet, there’s always enough variability in enemy spawns and random hazards that they cannot be entirely sure about their safety. Even when the space is known, and what we’re trying to do inside of it, we will need to be prepared to think on our feet if we encounter any unforeseen hindrances to our journey.

To make sure that we avoid unnecessary dawdling, the game also throws in the concept of Simulation Corruption. The longer our run goes on, the more corrupt the system will become, respawning and strengthening the enemies in our way, and increasing the number of environmental hazards we will need to deal with. Should our corruption reach high enough levels, then the run comes to a premature end and the simulation will need to begin all over again.

When you combine it with the way progress gets carried over between runs (which we’ll talk a bit more about next week), it really comes together as a complete package stronger than the sum of its parts. We’ve already made a lot of progress to start, so hopefully, we continue at this pace.

Fingers crossed.

This season of sin is all the rage because we’re here to embrace the fury and unleash our Wrath upon our enemies. And this might be our most challenging escalation yet.

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I’m not sure how fond I am of this mission, but I think that might be because I’m approaching it wrong.

When I’m told the mission is based on the sin of Wrath, I picture going on a complete rampage, gunning down and slaughtering any enemy that crosses my line of sight. Something akin to the game’s final mission, where there are absolutely no restrictions on how we make it to the target. And while this mission is approaching that, not being able to pick up the enemy guns really puts a damper on it all.

That said, I can see what the game wants me to do. I’m expected to set traps and take out my targets through accident kills while dodging all of the other guards. I just don’t want to do it that way. I want to leave a trail of bodies in my wake.

Time will tell, as we come back to this, whether or not I can curb my instincts.

Acharky and I have arrived at the end of our horrific “expedition” in these decrepit old caverns, alongside the horrors that inhabit it. Having ventured deep into the belly of the beast, we have arrived at something of an understanding of what our enemy is, and what they intend to do.

But will it be enough to prevent any further death in this haven for hostility?

It’s clear to me at this point that Supermassive has really begun to hit its stride with these Dark Pictures Anthology games. This is easily the best one they’ve ever produced.

The strongest part of The Dark Pictures is precisely that it is an anthology. Each entry is exactly long as it needs to be in order to flesh out its characters and tell its tale without feeling the need to extend it to a full 8-12 hours in order to justify its cost. If someone had a group of horror movie buffs coming over to their hours for an afternoon, any one of these games would be an excellent choice to bring out for an afternoon of fun and frights, even if they all have work in the morning.

And that time sure to have a number of amazing moments for both the cast and the players. I’m still reeling over how we pulled off bombing the vampire nest without killing Nick in the process. I thought for sure that he had bitten the dust, but we managed to pull it off without any (further) casualties.

In fact, considering that we had more options to screw up between the two of us, I’d say losing only one member of the group is actually a pretty significant accomplishment. Hopefully, when The Devil in Me comes out next year, we’ll have as great if not better luck.

At last, we have arrived at the final season of sin, and the only remaining one is that of Wrath. And our target for today embodies that very sin, beating down his fellow fighters in a fit of blind rage.

Like the raging inferno, it’s time to snuff him out.

I’m a little embarrassed at how long it took me to realize that the target was in The Block, the most obvious location for him to be.

Not the most elegant kill, but it works. I bet I could have used the light switch to knock out the guards in prep for a lethal dose of poison. That said, it did lead to an exciting escape. 🙂

We’ve gone from the horrors of war to horrors of a more supernatural persuasion. And though we would all do better if we worked as a team, old habits and grudges die-hard.

Hopefully, acharky and I can overcome them before it’s too late.

I must admit that I did not anticipate the direction this story was going to take. Historically, Dark Pictures games always have mundane explanations to explain the supernatural elements to their stories, but that’s clearly not the case this time around.

I’m sure if I looked, I would find other vampire fiction where the bloodsuckers are actually parasitic organisms from space. But for me, it’s a novel interpretation of one of the oldest monsters in the books. Certainly not the first one I would come up with, and yet it really works for the story they’re trying to tell.

The other thing worth calling out is how tastefully they handle the Iraqi character, Salim. Given the setting, it would have been so easy to demonize him and make him into an absolute villain. Thankfully, they chose not to take that tact. Rather, he is frequently the most emotionally intelligent character in the game, realizing quickly that there’s no need for the human characters to go against each other.

They also don’t attempt to whitewash the reasons why America went to war in the Middle East for most of my lifespan. Nor do they shirk from the real human costs of the war, both in terms of the damage it did to the Middle East and to the soldiers who were deployed. I was not expected to be allowed to let Jason open up about all of his damage to Salim, but I am thankful the option exists in the game.

Next week is the finale, so look forward to it! ^_^

The season of spooks has once more returned to amaze and terrify in equal measures. And like clockwork, Supermassive Games, the makers of Until Dawn, have released a new entry in their incredible anthology series: The Dark Pictures Anthology. We’re going back to 2003 Iraq, where US and Iraqi soldiers confront the horrors of the House of Ashes.

And naturally, I would never stream a Dark Pictures game without my Dark Duo cohort, Acharky. Only this time, things are different. Acharky has purchased a copy of the game for himself, and we’re playing together online. I’ve been told this is one of the best ways to play a Dark Pictures entry, so I’m looking forward to seeing how our experiences change with this new playstyle.

Now that we’re two hours into our campaign, I can safely say that this is one of the coolest ways to experience such a narrative-heavy game. Because we’re not using the same screen like we were in the previous games (in a manner of speaking), House of Ashes is free to show Chris and I entirely separate scenes at the same time, briefly pausing in the event one of us needs to “catch up”.

It also means that what Chris is experiencing is likely additional scenes that were added to provide new context that wasn’t part of the original game. If we did something similar to this for Man of Medan or Little Hope, I imagine we would see scenes that were not in the original playthroughs we did for those games.

As for the plot itself, the premise has all the potential to get one of those uncritically jingoistic military fluff pieces that glorify the violence and horrors of war. Thankfully, it does not seem to be going in that direction. Nor does it seems to be mere set dressing. I look forward to seeing how the story progresses as we continue our experience.

The Hitman gods have seen fit to offer me yet another shot at redemption. Although no recording of the attempt exists, at one point I had tried to eliminate the Bookkeeper back when he was originally introduced in Hitman (2016). At the time, I failed, getting myself blown away before I could find the ledger and escape.

Let us find out if I’ve gotten better since last we tried this.

Thumbnail by Sam Callahan.

No matter how much better at the game I get, there is nothing quite like that tension after completing an objective in an Elusive Target. At that point, there is no going back and the attempt is locked in whether the player succeeds or fails. Normally, that doesn’t last long because all we have to do is escape once the target is dead.

In this case, we actually had to look for the secondary objective afterward. And every second we spend after the target is killed is one more second where everything can fall apart at a moment’s notice. Fortunately, this time we managed to succeed, even if it wasn’t the most elegant performance.

It’s good to get some payback, and a swanky hat as a reward.

At long last, we have arrived at the end of our adventures in Boletaria and its surrounding lands. The archdemons in the four corners of the world, the Dragon God of Stonefang Tunnels, the Old Monk of Latria, the Storm King of the Shrine of Storms, and Maiden Astraea of the Valley of Defilement all lay dead by our hands.

All we have left to do is ascend to the zenith of the Boletarian Palace to take on the person who doomed the world in his bid for power by waking the Old One from his slumber: King Allant.

Our opponent awaits.

Thumbnail by Sam Callahan.

For people who have experience playing other Soulsborne games, Demon’s Souls is significantly easier than the games that came afterward. Nothing quite illustrates that point like the duel against the False King Allant. When I first played Demon’s Souls way back then, I found this fight extremely tough due to my glass cannon build and lack of experience. And now, with several games under my belt, the fight has been trivialized. There are still few things cooler than a one-on-one duel to cap off a journey like ours, so it still serves as an incredible final setpiece.

And though we missed our opportunity to fight Old King Doran, we did still make the time to take about the twin blades Demonbrandt and Soulbrandt. Lore like this is part of what makes the series. While it’s entirely possible to simply play through these games without putting much thought into the world at large, simply enjoyed the moment-to-moment play, those who desire to explore and understand the world around them are rewarded for their efforts with knowledge of the people and places they interact with along the journey, and how they interact with each other. Although Demon’s Souls is the most traditionally video gamey of the series, presenting itself as a selection of linear levels that can be tackled in any order, it too has a fully realized world waiting for players to discover it.

Having had the idea to do a series on Demon’s Souls for a long time now, I’m so glad that I’ve finally done it. Back when Sam and I were still doing Interactive Friction, we floated the idea of doing Demon’s Souls, but Sam didn’t want to be the one in the pilot’s seat and I didn’t have a good setup at the time. By the time I did, we had both gotten jobs, and all our free time was used up. Thankfully, the PS5 version of Demon’s Souls gave me the perfect opportunity to rekindle this old flame. I doubt I’ll ever play the other Soulsborne games here simply due to their time commitment, but who knows what the future holds…

…I do, of course. Next week, Acharky makes his return as we tackle The Dark Pictures Anthology: House of Ashes.