Deep Rock Galactic is one of those games that I truly feel like I’ll be playing forever. As long as I have a friend who’s wanting to rock and stone, they’ll have my pickaxe by their side! It’s a wonderful game with friends and might be one of the quintessential games for a Left 4 Dead lover like myself!
TLDR at the end
What is Deep Rock
As hinted above Deep R(C)ock Galactic is a game similar to L4D. It’s a co-op first person shooter where you are fighting hordes of enemies. Instead of zombies and horror themes though, the game is about 4 dwarves mining minerals out of a planet for the titular Deep Rock Galactic company. And instead of set campaigns and zombies you have caves that are all procedurally generated and a bunch of angry bugs. Mission objectives are determined by what mission you select but all secondary objectives are randomized. The mission objectives vary wildly from just going through and mining Morkite, which is a specific mineral, to liquid refinery missions where you build pipes and have to defend them to escorting a huge drill bulldozer that will have what is effectively a boss fight at the end and much much more than that. Between each mission you’re returned to the home base where you can edit loadouts, drink some beer, or play the real game, Jetty Boot.
Classes
There are 4 different classes you get to choose from when playing. You have the Engineer (my personal favorite), the Driller (my next favorite), Scout and Gunner(Who I haven’t even touched). All 4 of these classes play differently and all have their strengths and weaknesses. The scout is useful for lighting up dark caves and zipping around with their hookshot to gather minerals that’d be a much larger pain for other classes to get, the driller is able to drill through terrain and create tunnels and shortcuts to areas and direct paths to extraction. Engineers can place sentry guns and have a platform gun to create terrain where it is needed. Gunners have high DPS and can create a zipline everyone can ride for navigating areas. They all have their functions and might honestly be the 4 most interconnected classes in any game I’ve seen. When you have a team of 1 of each it truly feels like everyone else can cover the weakness of the other and people then have assigned jobs. What’s wonderful is that on top of that you can customize your loadouts. You can unlock so many things in this game. Weapons, cosmetics, power ups, perks. The game has so much customization and progression it truly feels endless and you can play whatever class how you would like.
Progression
This game proves that the idea of a battle pass can be fun as long as it’s not monetized into the ground. Deep Rock, almost at first glance, has all the signs of a monetized hellscape of a game. The game has so many different resources and currencies, seasonal battle passes which allow you to unlock cosmetics and resources, contracts which allow you to unlock additional features of the game. But it’s not monetized to hell and back. The game once you buy it is all completely free. They do sell some skins as DLC but that’s it. This game single handedly proves that the idea of a battlepass, since that’s how the seasonal events are structured, can be incredibly fun. It’s just fun to be able to progress and unlock things all the time and be able to choose what and how you unlock the stuff. What’s not fun about this battlepass structure is how it is normally horribly monetized and the free battlepasses just serve as a general slap in the face and temptation to lure you into the premium ones. This game doesn’t do that and it’s so fun and addicting. Besides the battlepass structure of the seasonal events you have contracts which will have you take specific missions and once you finish all the missions in a contract you will be rewarded with something. Oftentimes it can be a weapon for your class, it’s a promotion for your class since you hit max level on one, it can be for the story event or holiday event. There’s contracts for tons of things and it’s incredibly addicting to run through them. I’ll often just want to sit there and power through some contacts. Especially since I still have so much to do. This game is over flowing with things to do and in a good way. There’s so much to do and unlock. I’ve sunk 60 hours into this game and I feel like I've barely scratched the surface of what there is to do. 60 hours I will say is nothing compared to what I’ve seen people plug into this game. I have friends who have upwards of 500 hours in this game.
Story/Lore
This section won’t be very long but I wanted to add it. The game is not much of a story game but there is some story and lore. I have not dug into the story or lore of this game much as it’s not much of the game's focus. It’s there for people who want to learn more but it’s not something I’m familiar with really at all.
TLDR
Deep Rock Galactic is a wonderful game. The devs should be proud of themselves and I look forward to their next game which is Deep Rock Galactic: Rogue Core. They also have a vampire survivors style game but I’ve not checked that out as I’ve yet to catch the Vampire Survivors fever. But this game is certainly a go to co-op game with the buds. A night of Deep Rock is always a good night and I’ve had some nights where it’s just hanging out and cry laughing with the boys. It’s definitely one of the best horde shooters on the market and if you are a fan of that genre, or just looking for a good time with friends, Deep Rock Galactic won’t let you down.
Also worth noting it is playable in single player. I don’t think it’s as enjoyable but it is an option. Still very worth it if that is your preferred way of playing but not the ideal or best way to play.
TLDR at the end
What is Deep Rock
As hinted above Deep R(C)ock Galactic is a game similar to L4D. It’s a co-op first person shooter where you are fighting hordes of enemies. Instead of zombies and horror themes though, the game is about 4 dwarves mining minerals out of a planet for the titular Deep Rock Galactic company. And instead of set campaigns and zombies you have caves that are all procedurally generated and a bunch of angry bugs. Mission objectives are determined by what mission you select but all secondary objectives are randomized. The mission objectives vary wildly from just going through and mining Morkite, which is a specific mineral, to liquid refinery missions where you build pipes and have to defend them to escorting a huge drill bulldozer that will have what is effectively a boss fight at the end and much much more than that. Between each mission you’re returned to the home base where you can edit loadouts, drink some beer, or play the real game, Jetty Boot.
Classes
There are 4 different classes you get to choose from when playing. You have the Engineer (my personal favorite), the Driller (my next favorite), Scout and Gunner(Who I haven’t even touched). All 4 of these classes play differently and all have their strengths and weaknesses. The scout is useful for lighting up dark caves and zipping around with their hookshot to gather minerals that’d be a much larger pain for other classes to get, the driller is able to drill through terrain and create tunnels and shortcuts to areas and direct paths to extraction. Engineers can place sentry guns and have a platform gun to create terrain where it is needed. Gunners have high DPS and can create a zipline everyone can ride for navigating areas. They all have their functions and might honestly be the 4 most interconnected classes in any game I’ve seen. When you have a team of 1 of each it truly feels like everyone else can cover the weakness of the other and people then have assigned jobs. What’s wonderful is that on top of that you can customize your loadouts. You can unlock so many things in this game. Weapons, cosmetics, power ups, perks. The game has so much customization and progression it truly feels endless and you can play whatever class how you would like.
Progression
This game proves that the idea of a battle pass can be fun as long as it’s not monetized into the ground. Deep Rock, almost at first glance, has all the signs of a monetized hellscape of a game. The game has so many different resources and currencies, seasonal battle passes which allow you to unlock cosmetics and resources, contracts which allow you to unlock additional features of the game. But it’s not monetized to hell and back. The game once you buy it is all completely free. They do sell some skins as DLC but that’s it. This game single handedly proves that the idea of a battlepass, since that’s how the seasonal events are structured, can be incredibly fun. It’s just fun to be able to progress and unlock things all the time and be able to choose what and how you unlock the stuff. What’s not fun about this battlepass structure is how it is normally horribly monetized and the free battlepasses just serve as a general slap in the face and temptation to lure you into the premium ones. This game doesn’t do that and it’s so fun and addicting. Besides the battlepass structure of the seasonal events you have contracts which will have you take specific missions and once you finish all the missions in a contract you will be rewarded with something. Oftentimes it can be a weapon for your class, it’s a promotion for your class since you hit max level on one, it can be for the story event or holiday event. There’s contracts for tons of things and it’s incredibly addicting to run through them. I’ll often just want to sit there and power through some contacts. Especially since I still have so much to do. This game is over flowing with things to do and in a good way. There’s so much to do and unlock. I’ve sunk 60 hours into this game and I feel like I've barely scratched the surface of what there is to do. 60 hours I will say is nothing compared to what I’ve seen people plug into this game. I have friends who have upwards of 500 hours in this game.
Story/Lore
This section won’t be very long but I wanted to add it. The game is not much of a story game but there is some story and lore. I have not dug into the story or lore of this game much as it’s not much of the game's focus. It’s there for people who want to learn more but it’s not something I’m familiar with really at all.
TLDR
Deep Rock Galactic is a wonderful game. The devs should be proud of themselves and I look forward to their next game which is Deep Rock Galactic: Rogue Core. They also have a vampire survivors style game but I’ve not checked that out as I’ve yet to catch the Vampire Survivors fever. But this game is certainly a go to co-op game with the buds. A night of Deep Rock is always a good night and I’ve had some nights where it’s just hanging out and cry laughing with the boys. It’s definitely one of the best horde shooters on the market and if you are a fan of that genre, or just looking for a good time with friends, Deep Rock Galactic won’t let you down.
Also worth noting it is playable in single player. I don’t think it’s as enjoyable but it is an option. Still very worth it if that is your preferred way of playing but not the ideal or best way to play.