Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor

When I was covering Gamescom in Cologne last month, one of the appointments on my agenda was to stop by the Ghost Ship Publishing booth. And while I can't talk about some of what I saw there, what I can tell you is that I was one of the first to get to try out Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor. When you find yourself at events of this kind, where meetings are measured to the millimetre to condense as much information as possible, and then jump to the next one, locking myself in a room to play Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor for half an hour and chatting with one of its creators was an absolute privilege and one of "those moments" that justify attending a fair.

From that first playthrough I remember, above all, the devilish luck I had with the upgrades at each level up, which all went from Epic to Legendary, but what it left me with was a clear resolution: I had to play the full version.

But let's go back to the beginning before I go back to praising how fun and addictive Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor is, to talk about the original Deep Rock Galactic. For those unfamiliar with it, this title is a co-op extraction shooter-looter with up to four friends in which you play as one of four different classes of mining dwarves sent by the evil Deep Rock Galactic corporation to mine the minerals and precious rocks of a strange planet called Hoxxes IV, itself populated by dangerous alien creatures called Glyphids. Each game is played by fulfilling a series of objectives related to resource extraction, while the team of dwarves fends off the hordes of bugs that attack them, improving their equipment little-by-little. Under this concept, the thought of a fusion of Deep Rock Galactic with something like Vampire Survivors sounded good as its creators at Funday Games chatted during a party, precisely during a previous Gamescom, as he confessed to me while testing the game.

Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor thus retains the basic approach of four different types of playable characters, as well as the types of enemies, rocks, and art style you've come to expect from the franchise. Only here, the experience is focused on single-player and holding on as long as possible in each level, completing objectives, and escaping before time runs out. It sounds easy, but playing the full version, it's not so easy. It's just terrific fun to try and try again and again.

In each game, at first, and especially if you're not very familiar with Deep Rock Galactic's (and Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor's) extensive arsenal of weapons, you'll be running back and forth across the map searching for precious minerals like red sugar and gold, while fleeing swarms of Glyphids that relentlessly harass you. But once the experience boosts start coming in, harvested by killing enemies or mining rocks, it gradually turns from running away to "maybe I can sneak past them", to eventually (if you're lucky and live long enough to get past character level 25) being an alien killing machine as you quietly work on your raw material gathering. With each playthrough you'll unlock slight upgrades of about thirty variables that, if you harvest enough resources in game, you can then use from the in-game menu to make things (marginally) more favourable next time. I like the progression, here it feels like a much less steep curve and gives greater rewards than in other titles in what you might call the Survivor genre.

There are a lot of attack variables, depending on the type of gear (elemental, penetration, dispersion) you use, and even these can be modified or combined mid-game if you find the necessary supplies or get a high Tier upgrade, although I have to say that in this full version, I haven't had too many of those. Fortunately, even that can be improved, if you make sure to invest resources into improving the Luck stat before you launch into the mission.

Artistically, there's little else to say. Each character in Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor is well designed, and you'll notice their basic differences when you choose one or the other. At first you can only choose the Explorer, but over a few sessions you'll be gathering the rest of the classes. The same can be said for the technical side of the game. Even with hundreds of independent, well-detailed enemies moving around the screen independently, despite the fact that a hundred or so little damage number signs are popping up and disappearing at every turn, Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor feels great. And as an exponent of the genre, your gameplay is only defined by how much time you put into the game. Don't worry if you're defeated even on the first level of the first of six biomes a dozen times. Every small defeat is a step closer to victory.

If I have to think of something that doesn't quite add up for me, it's perhaps something in the balancing aspect. The damage ticks from any enemy, no matter how small or simple, seem a little too punitive at times, especially since for a good part of the game (at the lower levels of the mission) the weapons barely do any real damage to put any distance or stand up to the swarm, unless you get lucky with upgrades. Or maybe it's because sometimes the character's hitbox inadvertently grazes something, and it's not easy to see. There's a disclaimer in the main menu that says something along the lines of "don't worry if the game is too hard, it's meant to be played slowly". And while it's possible that it will arrive as post-release content, a basic local or online co-op mode, which is also deeply rooted in the essence of DRG, would have been welcome.

I'm not the most dedicated Survivor player, and admittedly I've only played Deep Rock Galactic a couple of times just to hang out with friends, but with Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor I was surprised several times to find when I looked up from my PC that it was already dark, and I had to go to bed (work to do). I think there are few better compliments for a title like this.