Deep Rock Galactic Is The Best Space Dwarf Simulator Ever!

August 19, 2019

The summer is a great time to catch up on some gaming and discover some new favorites. Early access gem Deep Rock Galactic has quickly become one of my personal favorites after stumbling across its greatness during a summer sale on Steam. Xbox One and PC gamers will rejoice as this futuristic dwarven mining sim strives for greatness AND releases sometime later on this year. Best to get in while the price is low and the content is plentiful!

You can upgrade gear, get a drink, listen to music, and customize your dwarf’s looks in the pre-mission hub.

Simply put, Deep Rock Galactic is an online coop based FPS game with tons of potential and tons of positive player reviews. The story is simple. You take control of one of 4 different classes of dwarves seeking fortune and riches by mining a planet called Hoxxes VI. The catch is that underground is a host of life that is hostile. Each mission you are sent deep into a section of the planet to mine a certain amount of a resource. Once you get the goods, you call your ride to extract you and escape. Using procedurally generated maps, no two dives are alike as developer Ghost Ship Games even adds different biomes like ice caves, lava caves, and so forth to keep things fresh and dangerous.

Working together is key to avoid swarms when in complex and lengthy mines.

Each dwarf class has different equipment to make the job easier but none more crucial and basic than your run of the mill pickaxe. Used for churning through rock as well as melee defense when times get hectic, you will get very familiar with it and the other guns and gear as the missions get longer and harder. As each class has a pickaxe, they do each have a title and purpose for coop digs. There’s the scout, the gunner, the engineer, and the driller. The scout lights the way with a flare gun. The gunner protects the crew with firepower and a handy shield generator. The engineer plants auto guns and has a ‘platform launcher’ to help the crew maneuver quicker. Lastly, the driller does just what you’d think, he drills through rock with his drilling gear.

Each dwarf has useful gear for defense and navigating the mines in solo and coop situations.

Together, this full crew can mine and haul quite a bit of resources and handle almost any baddie thrown their way…and there are quite a few. The arachnid-like Glyphids have a number of different subspecies and dwell all over the planet. With hives and hive mothers and such, there are high numbers of these creatures and they come in all sizes. As the game grows, I’m certain that there will be more types as well as bigger bosses to fight as you missions get longer and more complex. The game keeps the difficulty as more players join your fight (just like with a Borderlands game) by making the enemies stronger and more numerous. This high risk, high reward philosophy is a great formula for this space dwarf simulator and chaos and fun always are the results!

Each mission is objective based and vary from beating bosses, mining rare minerals, or collecting alien eggs.

In between these missions, you can upgrade your gear, customize the dwarves’ appearance, check out the bar, and learn and equip skills. Again, I’m certain more activities as well as tech will be available to equip and upgrade as the game updates continue to roll in before release!

Finding missions to do solo as well as coop are easy to do as well. Unfortunately, neither version of the game allows for split-screen local coop. You are totally dependent on fellow online miners to dig your way to glory. Still, the drive of upgrading gear and missions that can be as short as 15 minutes or longer will keep this game in your regular rotation for quite some time.