[Review] Deep Rock Galactic

Deep Rock Galactic is a co-op first-person shooter developed by Ghost Ship Games and published by Coffee Stain. Officially released May 13, 2020, after two years in early access period.

/// Premise

Congratulations miner, you have been hired by the Deep Rock Galactic Space Mining Corporation, to be part of the mining operations of Hoxxes IV, the single most lucrative (and hostile) planet in the galaxy. Infested with Glyphid killer bugs, Mactera, and all sorts of deadly creatures. That's where you come in, to subjugate a wild planet, we need the most tenacious, strong-willed, underground survivalists we can find. Mighty Dwarfs.

/// Structure

Deep Rock is a horde shooter with an emphasis on exploration, teamwork, and continued progression. There is no definitive end to it, and your mileage may vary based on how engaged you are in its core gameplay loop and progression systems.

The more you play, the more content you come across naturally, flowing well in a simple but addictive loop, with enough variety to keep each new expedition fresh. It feels like a refinement of Payday 2's formula with lots of replayability and different playstyles to explore.

From the Space Rig, solo or with friends, gear-up up your Dwarfs, select a unique class and build, board the drop pod, and descent into the depths of Hoxxes IV to complete one of several missions. Each mission is unique from the last thanks to cave generation, its region, length, complexity, and hazard on top of different objectives, the biome's local fauna, and mutators. The terrain down in the caves is also fully destructible, allowing for creative transversal, be it digging tunnels, setting up ziplines, or building bridges.

Once there find your way around the cave systems, collect and mine special resources, face periodic hordes of spider-like bugs including special enemies and field bosses, and to cap it all off, finish your primary tasks and extract to succeed.

Each mission is paced differently to better suit the moment-to-moment gameplay of its objective, but you can expect moments of hectic combat, with an impressive number of enemies, and then things will calm down, returning the focus to exploration with plenty of breathing room for that sense of wonder and the fantastic ambient soundtrack to kick in while exploring a quiet cave.

Its difficulty settings are very accessible, going from laughably easy on the lowest to hard mandatory team coordination at its highest. After it's all done, you press the big red button on your robotic pack mule companion, cal in the drop pod, and start a race to the extraction point, as the drop pod will leave with or without you in five minutes.

Back on the Space Rig, your home base, you can upgrade weapons, switch classes, buy and sell minerals acquired down on the caves, customize your look, but most importantly of all, celebrate a hard-earned victory with your fellow Dwarfs by drinking your ass off at the Abyss Bar.

Now take a breather, upgrade your gear and take another dive into the caves, those shiny minerals won't mine themselves.

/// Classes

For the dangerous expeditions into the dank caves of Hoxxes, you will need the help of specialists. Players can freely pick between four classes. Each has a set of weapons, grenades, transversal, and utility tools unique to them.

All four are great, both on their own, but even better when putting their brains, beards, guns, and tools together to exploit class synergies to the fullest. I'm going to describe their initial kit, but every Dwarf has access to new primary and secondary weapons as you level up.

They are:

•The Gunner

Has access to the big boy guns, like the LeadStorm minigun and the Bulldog Revolver. At the forefront of any battle, he excels against large numbers, eating hordes for breakfast. While not as mobile as other dwarfs he brings the humble Zipline Launcher to the table, a valuable tool for the entire team, shooting a ridable tether cable across a large distance, often to cross a chasm or descend from a steep edge.

As for his utility, a Shield Generator that projects a protective bubble that repels enemies for a limited time, life-saving during overwhelming situations.

•The Engineer

Probably the hardest class to master, and for a long time it was my least liked of the four. Until something clicked and I started to perform surprisingly well with it.

He's a flexible class, some say it's like two Dwarfs in one, capable of defending himself with a starting Shotgun, shining in crowd control and defense, with his Grenade Launcher and Sentry Turrets.

He does however requires some preparation and smart positioning to make the best use of his tools. For transversal, he can improve the team's mobility and mining efficiency with the Platform Gun, similar in function to Prey's (2017) GLOO gun.

•The Driller

The favorite class of the community, well-rounded and easy to learn, everyone is happy to see one in the team. As the name implies, he brings Akimbo Power Drills capable of digging large tunnels with ease, always incredibly useful, and a key factor in something called "bunker" strategy.

Packing destructive C4 charges, try to avoid killing your teammates with it (or at least pretend to), a Flamethrower to burn down hordes, and a Semi-auto Pistol good for hitting pesky out of range enemies.

•The Scout

This is the class most new players gravitate towards due to the high mobility and the familiarity brought by his starting Assault Rifle and Double-barrel Shotgun kit.

The scout can easily transverse terrain and reach steep areas with the use of his Grappling Hook and illuminate the entire cave with the Flare Gun.

At first glance, he appears to be an offensive class, but you realize after you grow beyond the initial newbie "green beard" phase that he's closer to a support class than an offensive one.

While he can hold his own, its weapons are not that efficient for extended horde fighting, especially on higher difficulties. The scout performs better when focusing his attention and damage into key targets out of the team's reach.

An experienced Scout will take advantage of his mobility to outmaneuver big hordes, clutching missions regularly by reviving an entire team on his own. While a "green beard" Scout is a bit of a meme in the community, that will instead botch his hook-shot and faceplant at the bottom of the chasm, failing the mission. (It's me, I've been that Scout).

Weapon and gear upgrades

Acquired with credits and minerals Upgrades, these are the building blocks of your playstyle. Divided into horizontal tiers, you can pick one from each line to compose your build. These upgrades apply not only to guns but also other equipment and tools.

Oh, and to close this off, every player also carries a set of rechargeable flares, a Pickaxe capable of collecting resources and breaking chunks off the terrain, and a Laser Pointer able to identify and ping anything for your team, be it minerals, hazards or enemies.

/// Missions

Missions are available to be selected on the center of the Space Rig, these are your bread and butter when it comes to gaining experience, resources, and money. They are sprinkled around different Planetary Regions.

Each Planetary Region brings a different biome, with unique geology, environmental hazards, minerals, enemies, and even weather. regions and new missions come and go on a  rotation timer of about 20 minutes. Aside from regional resources, all caves will have Gold and Nitra, which directly translate to money and ammo respectively, as 80 Nitra is used to call in a supply pod mid expedition.

All missions have an obligatory primary objective and an optional secondary. Some will bring "Alerts", modifiers to how the mission plays out like low gravity, no shields, parasites infestation, low oxygen, etc.

The primary objectives currently in the game are:

•Mining Expedition

Basic chill exploration, mine some Morkite, extract once the quota is met.

•Escort Duty 

Ride, protect and fuel a massive bulldozer, culminating in a last stand while drilling a giant sentient rock.

•Salvage Operation

Recover the equipment of a (now dead) team and their failed expedition, a series of hold-you-ground defense objectives while repairing mules, and an abandoned drop pod.

•Elimination

A straight boss fight of sorts, kill between 2 or 3 Dreadnought types, each with unique boss mechanics.

•Egg Hunt

Mine out a few alien eggs off the walls. The hive won't be pleased.

•Point Extraction

Similar to egg Hunt but with mineral chunks and a central defense platform, the mine head, where they are deposited.

•On-site Refining

My favorite one, build pipelines from the central refinery to the liquid morkite wells, fire up the refinery, grind like a skater on the pipes and defend it until the extraction is done.

And a new mission type should be coming soon with update 35 in Q4 2021.

/// Progression

Aside from the core loop, there are many progression systems to keep you engaged, with a steady supply of new unlocks. You have basic class leveling, new upgrades, new guns, craft beer to drink with the lads, cosmetics hunting, weekly assignments, monthly Miner Union challenges, end game activities, etc.

But the brilliance of it all is that despite having a lot to grind for, Deep Rock Galactic doesn't chain you to these systems, they are there to be engaged at your own leisure. You won't be punished for just playing the default missions and ignoring them, there's no "fear of missing out" here.

If you want to play one or two hours at weekends with friends on Hazard 2, you will have just as much fun as the cave-dweller Dwarf that plays several hours a week in Hazard 5. Deep Rock respects your time, but also offers something extra for the players that want more than just a casual session.

As you play, Class Experience is earned, each class can reach up to level 25, progress is displayed in red on the top left of the screen. These unlock new upgrades and gear for your Class.

Every three class level-ups, your Player Rank increases, displayed in blue on the right. Unlocking new items in the accessory shop to be purchased with in-game credits and special assignments for unique cosmetics.

Once a Class is at max level, a promotion assignment becomes available. Promotions are like a prestige of sorts, it resets your Class level while retaining all unlocks and upgrades. It awards a player border, to display your expertise in multiplayer lobbies, and allows you to continue earning Player Ranks.

Your first promotion will also give you a tritilyte key, unlocking access to end game activities such as Deep Dives and Machine Events.

/// Endgame

The endgame, like most games, revolves around power and cosmetics. To be able to complete high-difficulty missions efficiently and in style. The core pillar for this goal in Deep Rock is what the game calls Weapon Overclocks.

Overclocks are the final mod slot for your gun, further increasing its performance in different aspects, with some even radically changing its function. They are vital for advanced min-maxed builds but also for dumb meme builds. Divided into three categories:

•Clean overclocks

A small boost to a few stats of the gun, with no penalties. A flat buff, but a weak one.

•Balanced overclocks

A decent buff to a stat with an equivalent nerf to another.

•Unstable overclocks

Grants a big bonus but you have to deal with an equally large trade-off penalty.

There are multiple Overclocks of all three types for each weapon. They are not made equal, and some are arguably better than others. Good examples of Unstable ones are the Fat Boy for the Grenade Launcher, ditching grenades in favor of small nuclear warheads at the cost of ammo reserve. Or Lead Storm for the minigun, greatly boosting damage, you can't move while firing.

Crafted using resources at the Space Rig's forge, Overclock's recipes come in the form of Matrix Cores.

Deep Dives

Consider them as this game's version of a Raid, Deep Dives are three missions chained back-to-back in stages that must be cleared in one go, with health, ammo, and resources carrying over to the following level. Harder than a casual mission, each stage features two mandatory objectives to be done before going deeper.

For each stage completed a Matrix Core is awarded containing the recipe to Overclocks, Unique Cosmetics, or just be blank, more on that later.

New cores will not be awarded after clearing a Deep Dive for the first time. If the player wishes for more cores, they have to move on to Machine Events or wait for new Dives to roll around next week. This is to discourage players from mindlessly repeating the same dive over and over again and inadvertently burning themselves out.

Blank Cores and Machine Events

So you have done the Deep Dives and aside from overclocks you also got some Blank Cores, what now?

When playing regular missions you have a 25% chance of coming across large metal platforms and a tiny white cube. These are the Machine Events. Remember the tritilyte key I mentioned? You can slot it into the cube to start the event.

One of four challenges will begin. From heavily armored bugs, disarming a hostile turret tower, or throwing explosives at a large crystal, all of them are hectic and must be completed in under 3 minutes to activate the Core Infuser.

Once it's all done, the Cube will be powered up allowing you to turn a infuse a Blank Core with a recipe. Able to choose between a Class-specific Overclock or cosmetic.

/// The Experience

Mechanics apart, I wanted to talk about the feeling Deep Rock offers. I couldn't fit anywhere else, so here's a mash-up of thoughts.

Combat encounters evoke memories of classics like Aliens and Starship Troopers, with lots of bugs coming out of the walls, crawling all over to get you, blasting hordes of them feels satisfying. With a total of 30 different enemies (excluding bosses), there are plenty of tougher bugs to spice things up, so it's not a walk in the park.

I have no idea how the cave generation is handled, but it's not like a Minecraft world, where if you saw one you have seen all of them. There is basic stuff like tunnels, yes, but caves always have at the very least one distinct area.

I have over 150 hours and the game still manages to get an audible "wow" out of me with just plain awesome layouts, many of which I've seen only once and never again. So it keeps you wondering what cool thing can be around the next corner.

Character customization is a big deal, and there is a vast range of cosmetics to unlock including beards, mustaches, helmets, armor, skins... all by playing the game. Alongside upgrades, there are also passive and active perks to further enhance your miner, unlocked by reaching milestones.

The personality of the Dwarfs is a light-hearted "fun with the lads" type, greeting each other with a loud "Rock and stone!", chatting about management, being proud about their work, trash-talking the bugs, that sort of thing. When returning to the Space Rig, you can celebrate a successful dig by paying rounds of drinks for teammates at the bar and even pass out drunk. 

There are passing jokes about space Elfs, "pointy-eared leaf-lovers", that hint at a larger universe outside the caves, but there is no dramatic and grandiose lore here. It's all about space Dwarfs doing Dwarf things, and that's a good thing.

To them, it's all just a job. Kill aliens, mine gold, and have a cold one with the boys after a day of hard work. This simplicity strengthens the sense of camaraderie between characters and even players. And for once, the online community is super chill and friendly, not something to be ashamed of, like some other fandoms that shaw remain unnamed.

If I can, I will stop gushing about the game for a moment to talk about the issues I have with it. Nitpicking, minor annoyances, nothing major really.

While the sound design, in general, is great, it could use more sound queues as sometimes you won't hear enemies sneak up, especially acid and webspitters (ranged bugs) who can only be heard once they are already shooting. That or their sound queues are too hard to discern quickly in the heat of a wave, Bulk Detonators, Pretorians, and Oppressor roars at a distance all sound similar.

Swarmers and Shockers enemies are a pain in the rear, small little buggers that die with one hit, spawning periodically in groups (and more frequently than normal bugs), scurrying around your ankles, eating away at your shields. They force you to waste ammo on them, ammo that would be better spent elsewhere.  Just be glad they don't show up frequently in all missions.

And lastly, the Scout Class gets the short end of the stick when it comes to high difficulty solo-play, considering how mobility is his specialty, missions that force you to defend confined areas can be pretty frustrating on top of a class that already struggles to deal with hordes alone efficiently.

/// Conclusion

Imagine if you took all the best parts of a live service game and cut off all the bad aspects that come attached to it. Deep Rock provides that dopamine rush of getting shiny loot, fun online co-op, gratifying long-term progression systems, and a well-thought-out end-game. With none of the "aways-online" trappings.

And as the cherry on top, it doesn't lock your progression to a central server as a cheap form of DRM as most do, which is a blessing. And it even received mod support recently. If we take anything away from the longevity of a title like Left 4 Dead 2 we know that mods added an immense level of replayability to it. These mods also allow for custom cosmetics, further cementing the developer's intent of keeping the game free of microtransactions.

Honestly, I have no idea why this flew under the radar of so many people, while Valheim (from the same publisher) exploded in popularity. I guess it really depends on the current social media zeitgeist.

Doesn't matter if you are a weekend casual, or a daily hardcore player, be it one or 10 hours of gaming a day, I can guarantee you that Deep Rock Galactic can offer more than enough fun for the price you are paying. Unless you have arachnophobia that is, then it's not that fun I guess.

"ROCK AND STONE, TO THE BONE"

-Deep Rock Galactic Space Mining Company, Employee N°0451-75