I finally played Mooncrash
I am bad... I helped to make an entire immersive sim but I didn't play the much-lauded Mooncrash DLC for Prey. So I finally tried it out last week.
Damn, it's very, very good! I didn't pick it up sooner because I'd been so fully Preyed Out on Regular Prey... but I'm glad I did finally return to it. What an elegant, contained, carefully-constructed gem of an experience!
I love how it takes certain things from the main game - character corpses, regional changes to enemy threat level, etc - and weaves them into the main systems for the roguelike loop. I am a particularly huge fan of the difficulty ramp-up, the way the characters unlock, and the way it slowly introduces goals which stretch across characters. Discovering that I would have to play them in a certain order and achieve some meta-run-goals in order to complete individual character goals was a lot of fun.
So was learning about resource management across characters. The game is very good at making you switch back and forth between concern for your current character and concern for the five-character run. Having that tension between them is super special and interesting, and I'm surprised more games haven't simply stolen this mechanic. It adds a little cost-benefit choice to every single action you take with every single character... but it's a tension you can discard if you're being hubristic, and as your skill with the game grows. I love a roguelike that encourages me to be very hubristic!!
So far I have unlocked three characters and completed one story mission all the way through. I have 51000 "sim points." I am having a lot of fun finding dead bodies all over the place. It is now possible for the moonbase to be on fire. It's great stuff!!