Prey (2017) Mooncrash Review

Written: 05-02-2023

I really enjoyed the base game of Prey (2017) but I think I enjoyed Prey (2017) Mooncrash more.

Mooncrash is interesting because it gives you five different characters to play as and all of them have different upgrade trees. This means you have to adapt your playstyle a little bit for each character. It also allows you to use abilities that you could have missed in the base game while adding a few new ones.

The DLC has a roguelike mechanic where when all of your characters die or escape the simulation is reset and you start again. Your overall goal is to escape with all five characters in one run of the simulation. However there are only five escape routes and some of them require multiple characters to open. This means you end up opening doors or hacking terminals for characters later on in the run that don’t have the ability to do these things. As a result, you get a kind of puzzle for how to use the characters to allow everyone to escape.

Initially, you start with 1 character and unlock the others by completing various objectives. This gradually adds more layers and as you unlock more there are also additional hazards around the moon base. This means the complexity slowly increases as you progress.

I’ve heard a few people complaining about the timer but it can be easily reset and it’s actually very long so you can explore most of the station before it fills up. I did have a few runs that felt like they were killed very suddenly by random explosions and other unpredictable events. They could be frustrating at times. I also didn’t realise the mule operator companion you unlock can store items which can then be used by the next character until someone told me. This is really useful for keeping characters alive and transferring tools and items like neuromods between characters.

I also wouldn’t recommend getting all the achievements in Mooncrash, as that requires quite a bit of grinding to get all the neuromods for all the characters. It will probably take you twice as long to finish the DLC if you go for that and it’s a lot less fun that just finishing it normally.

I highly recommend this DLC especially if you enjoyed Prey. I’m not a fan of roguelikes usually but I still enjoyed this one so bare that in mind, however the roguelike mechanics here are probably not for everyone. Prey and this DLC seem to go on sale a lot so if you’re not sure you can always wait for a sale.