A Brief Look at Deep Rock Galactic
Deep Rock Galactic is a game that people have been telling me to buy for ages. I’d had a few friends play Deep Rock Galactic recently, and they all recommended the game to me. So when it last went on sale, I gave in and bought this dwarf mining sim.
Turns out, it’s a pretty good game. A very good game perhaps.
Missions are chaotic
The main gameplay loop is kinda hard to describe, but it mostly involves mining, Dwarves and nasty bugs. You select a mission, jump into a giant drill that sends you to where the mission is, and then you have to mine stuff, collect resources, stuff like that. In some missions, mining resources is the only thing you need to do, but in other missions, you can find yourself making pipelines or fixing and finding lost drop ships. Once you’ve done whatever the main objective is, you must rush to the extraction pod, before you get overrun by bugs. Not computer bugs, more alien enemy bugs. Somewhat reminiscent of Tyranids in Warhammer 40k.
Of course, it’s not that easy. Maps are randomly generated and destructible, everything is pitch black and the aliens down there are pretty nasty. Big, scary, bug monsters. Thankfully, we have guns to deal with such a thing. And flamethrowers, grenade launchers and sentry guns. Basically, if it’s not on 2 legs, then kill it.
Once you have escaped, your rewards from all your mining can be spent on perks and stuff to level yourself up and make your Dwarves stronger. After all, there are four classes to play as, all with their own unique styles of fighting and mining.
There’s cosmetics to earn as well, but I haven’t really looked into all that yet. I’ve seen a season pass or two as well, but I don’t really buy or enjoy season passes.
What the game does is completely nail the whole dwarven aesthetic.
What makes Deep Rock Galactic REALLY stand out though is how well it represents so many Dwarvish traits. Basically, if Dwarves were real, their culture would be almost exactly like how Deep Rock Galactic describes them. Right down to the mining of everything, the no man left behind rule and the glugging of good beer and mead. Our Dwarf characters are all unique Dwarven in their own Dwarvan ways and do things that Dwarves should do. And all around them is a rough and ready Dwarven base with Dwarven styled consoles and rest areas.
The propaganda (for lack of a better word) is also very Dwarven. Everyone chants the same powerful words in different variations: Rock and Stone. It’s a fanfare that carries well and fits in perfectly with the rest of the space Dwarf mythos.
Great game, would recommend
Even though I am still a complete newbie, I’d definitely recommend Deep Rock Galactic. There is a bit of a learning curve, but if you’re playing with friends, then you will pick things up pretty quickly. Just remember to communicate so nothing goes wrong.
Playing solo is still fun and perfectly doable, but playing with friends is way, way better.
Hey, it’s this game! My favorite shooter since Team Fortress 2!
Really, DRG is nothing short of a masterpiece in my opinion. While I could never fully get into L4D or Payday, its incredible atmosphere, fantastic teamplay and varied gameplay have kept me hooked for almost four years and over 700 hours of playtime now.
Not only is each class unique, but they all have access to a huge amount of customization options, thanks to alternate weapons and mods to each and every one of their tools. Not to mention the “endgame” which unlocks special weapon mods that can radically change how a given weapon behaves, opening entire new ways to play.
To add to that, the game is regularly updated for free, with the only things locked behind a paywall being a handful of cosmetics sets, explicitly given a pricetag in order to fund the aforementioned updates. No FOMO either despite the recent addition of a (also free) battle pass of sorts; all rewards from the previous “season” are available as part of various cosmetic reward pools.
Did I mention the charm of the characters? Despite all using the same voice pitch-shifted depending on the class, they single-handedly made me fall in love with the classic fantasy dwarf archetype.
Special mention goes to the “salute” emote which has its own dedicated key and is to be used in just about any circumstance for instant camaraderie.
This concludes my shilling for Deep Rock Galactic. Try it out, it’s on sale at just under 10€ as of writing this!
Sadly as of tomorrow the sale ends, but yeah, it’s basically the perfect dwarven game.