We chat with Ghost Ship Publishing about turning Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor into a compelling eSport

When we think of eSports, we're often thinking of big MOBAs, shooters, or fighting games, but as the idea of event gaming and competitive gaming has grown, more titles have found a way to get our hearts pumping and us standing from our seats. At first, Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor's endeavours into eSports were more of a spoof, but now they're very real, and we spoke with Ghost Ship Publishing's head of publishing and marketing Alex Skronski about what makes this game unique.

"I think the thing that excites me the most when I watch the matches is that it's not a boxing or wrestling match where it's two people going head-to-head," Skronski said. "It's a race. It's somebody pushing themselves to their utmost limit, knowing that somebody else is right next to them. They can't afford to lose focus on how they're pushing themselves as well as they can."

Skronski also explained how the roguelike's nature works in its favour, creating scenarios that even the developers never would have accounted for. "And the nature of the game is that there's a lot of random elements to it," he continued. "They play the same seed head-to-head, but there are a lot of random elements during the run that make it very unpredictable to both the audience and also to us."

If you want to hear more about the Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor - Ultimate Challenge Invitationals 2026, and how hyped we were leading into the event, check out the full interview below: