Prey: Mooncrash

Mooncrash kept one hand-built map and randomised the details inside it. The layout (crater hub, crew annex, mining quarry, lab) never changes, but hazards, collapsed tunnels and staircases, offline tram stations, escape pod and closet locations, enemy spawns and item spots are randomised each run.

Arkane's team was obsessed with roguelikes like Darkest Dungeon, Risk of Rain and Dead Cells, but random layouts are hard at Prey's level of 3D detail. Players learn shortcuts and safe spots, then must adapt when one fails; Mark Brown's favourite moments came from random changes such as a broken-down tram ruining his plans. Deathloop, which repeats areas almost identically, lost its surprise by the sixth visit.

Mooncrash adds hazards as objectives are completed to offset permanent progression. Players keep skill tree unlocks, blueprints and a permanent currency between runs, so the game adds fire and radiation at about 25 percent of missions, a shorter time limit at 50 percent and dust storms at 75 percent.

The aim is to hold players in a flow state, since permanent progression otherwise leaves only a handful of runs in the sweet spot between too hard and overpowered. The idea came from friendlier roguelikes like Rogue Legacy. "The game is fighting back, and making things harder."

The counterweight still wasn't enough, so the finale felt anticlimactic. Mark Brown had so many sim points he went on a superweapon shopping spree before each run, which made the final escape with all five characters trivial.

Deathloop, with no counterweight at all, let him finish its finale on the first attempt. A fun, cathartic finale does not make up for missing challenge across the game.

A pressure timer forces hard choices, but sudden death on expiry is too harsh. Rising corruption brings tougher enemies and harder hacking, and a full meter kills the player and forces a loop reset.

Players found it anxiety-inducing and it clashes with slow stealth, exploration and environmental storytelling. It also undercuts the multi-character system, since resetting the simulation often becomes the better choice. "Having the game just unceremoniously kill you when the timer runs out is too harsh of a punishment."

Splitting the hero into five specialists pushed players out of comfort zones. Mooncrash divides Prey's Morgan into a stealth expert, a repair woman, a heavy weapons tank, a PSI specialist and a Typhon specialist, so a player's go-to style is sometimes not available.

Arkane's Rich Wilson named comfort-pattern play, like pure stealth or never killing, as a problem in immersive sims where players see only part of the game. Mark Brown used abilities he never touched in Prey; his one wish was that the psychic characters couldn't also use guns. In Deathloop's single-hero design he hacked turrets for about 30 hours.

Earlier characters change the world for later ones in the same loop. The volunteer can only escape through a portal he can neither repair nor hack, so the engineer repairs it, the custodian hacks it, then the volunteer steps through.

It also works against you: a used escape pod is gone for everyone, a dead character can return as a powerful phantom, and scavenged items vanish for later heroes. That tension fades because players can buy what they need. "It's clever - and has the feeling of playing a co-op game with yourself."

Mooncrash leaves the final challenge to the player's own planning. In the last loop players choose which character takes which escape route and in what order, almost without limits.

Strategies include sending the weakest character first so the strongest are present when corruption peaks, or giving the hardest route to a favourite hero. Deathloop instead lays out one set route, order and method in a cutscene and quest log.

Mooncrash delivers story outside the loop to control narrative order. After a set number of Kasma orders, the game sends players back to their spaceship for the next chunk of plot.

Deathloop borrowed the trick with a Juliana and Colt phone call at the start of each level.

Mooncrash worked as a prototype whose fixes the follow-up dropped. Deathloop reused Mooncrash's loop structure but not its randomisation, difficulty counterweights, specialists or open finale, so Mark Brown found it a weaker version.

Mooncrash came from Arkane Austin and Deathloop from Arkane Lyon, with little staff overlap. Mooncrash's tiny layout did get repetitive, which Deathloop's seven missions and interleaved side quests relieved. "Bonus content like this can be a great way to experiment with new ideas and concepts."