Mining, Mayhem, and Bugs: A Deep Rock Galactic Review

Your headlamp flickers, barely lighting the walls around you. The distant sounds of insects grow louder, signaling an incoming swarm. With your pickaxe in one hand and a rifle in the other, you look at your crewmates – dwarves wearing heavy armor, each armed with their own specialized gear. ‘Rock and Stone!’ someone shouts, encouraging the team. There’s no turning back now. The only way out is through, and the deeper you go, the more danger – and riches – await.

 

Deep Rock Galactic is a cooperative first-person shooter set in space, on the planet of Hoxxas. You play as a dwarf working for a corrupt mining company, and you go on missions to cave systems with other dwarves to mine materials, recover gear and more. Before picking what mission to complete you can decide on how challenging you want it to be; some caves are harder to navigate which is indicated by the Cave Complexity meter, and additionally some missions are longer than others. Although the game is intended to be played with others, you can also lock your lobby so other people can’t join you.

 

The game’s audiovisual design is beautiful, and it complements the chaotic experience well. The graphics embrace a stylized, low-poly aesthetic that keeps environments visually distinct while still feeling immersive. The caves are dark and unpredictable, but the low-poly graphics keep it approachable. The soundtrack works well with the game’s flow as it switches between atmospheric tracks and high BPM battle music that ramps up the tension when swarms of alien bugs attack. Together these elements create an immersive experience beneath the surface of Hoxxas.

Before launching the mission, you must decide on what dwarf class you want to play as. There are four classes – Scout, Engineer, Gunner and Driller – and each class has special tools to help with completing the tasks in hand. The Gunner deploys ziplines, the Scout shoots platforms onto walls, the Engineer builds sentry turrets and the Driller drills through walls with ease. While it is possible for all four players to be in the same class, that might not be the best choice to complete missions; when the varying abilities of each class are used well together, it’s quicker and easier to move forward.

 

Each mission usually has one main and one side objective to complete. Naturally, the side objective isn’t necessary to complete in order to beat the mission, but completing it does give you more rewards in the end. There is no time limit for the missions, so you can goof around for as long as you’d like to. Once the primary objective is complete, the team must extract by calling in the drop pod. This triggers a final challenge: navigating back through the tunnels while waves of bugs attack. If at least one dwarf makes it aboard before time runs out, the mission is a success, and all collected resources are banked. Once the mission is complete and you’re back in the main lobby, it’s time to pick a new mission and keep on mining.

 

One of my favorite aspects of the game is that although it is marketed (and arguably more fun) as a co-op, it’s still enjoyable to play alone. Having the ability to pick the difficulty of your mission before boarding the rocket helps, and you’re supplied with a drone that helps with keeping the gnarly bugs away. These features add an additional level of versatility, if you don’t feel like teaming up with other players to complete missions. Another thing that keeps the gameplay fresh is that every single cave is different due to procedural generation. The cave systems you encounter can be full of tiny halls which means more mining, or they can be immensely large with the increased need for your platform or zipline tools.

 

I have played the game for about ten hours (which obviously isn’t a lot), and I’m still confused about some of the functionalities. While the main lobby is beautiful, there are so many terminals where you can buy different upgrades that I almost always spend about 15 minutes just wandering around the lobby to find what I’m looking for. Since the levels for my dwarf classes aren’t high, most of the terminals aren’t even functional for me, which makes the lobby even more confusing; I’ll walk up to a station thinking I’ve found where I can upgrade my tools only to find out that the station is locked. Some of the fault is of course mine since my memory isn’t the greatest, but that doesn’t change the fact that the lobby is confusing to use for new players.

Although the objectives are always visible in the top right corner, I always seem to forget what I’m supposed to be doing. As a new player I also don’t know what certain materials look like, so it can be difficult to know what I need to be looking for. Combat can make the screen look very cluttered at times, which makes it pretty difficult to keep track of what you’re supposed to be doing. Thankfully, the combat isn’t constant but instead happens in waves. The mission control will contact you through the radio and warn you of incoming hordes of bugs, so you have time to orient yourself for the upcoming battle. It’s in your control to make sure you don’t lose track of what you were doing before the attack.

 

These cons are very minor compared to the amount of fun you have on the missions. It’s also refreshing to play a game where I’ve encountered zero bugs and where the community is very supportive. I’m definitely not good at this game, and even the high-level players have been helpful when I have had no idea what to do. As I spend more time in the game, I’m sure the lobby will become second nature and the chaos of combat will feel more manageable. The game has a good balance between challenge and fun, which makes the experience both rewarding and chaotic. One thing is certain about Deep Rock Galactic – there’s always another mission waiting, and the caves won’t mine themselves. Rock and Stone!

 

Deep Rock Galactic

Publishers – Coffee Stain Studios, Coffee Stain Publishing

Developer – Ghost Ship Games

Platforms – Microsoft Windows, PlayStation (4 & 5), Xbox (One, Series X & Series S)

Release Date – May 13, 2020

Genre – Cooperative first-person shooter

PEGI – 16

 

Photo credits:

Cover image sourced from the Deep Rock Galactic Steam store page. In-game screenshots captured by the author, Jade Huhtamaa.

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