Deep Rock Galactic review: I’m hard as rock now

Deep Rock Galactic is a co-op first person shooter. It is the first game released from the Danish studio Ghost Ship games and is clearly their much-loved baby. The game was released in early access back in 2018 and had its full release on PC and Xbox in May 2020. In January 2022 it arrived on the Sony PlayStation 4 and 5 and was included with January’s PS Plus games.

Deep Rock Galactic is a mining corporation, extracting minerals from a hostile alien planet and you are a dwarf. Dwarves mine, dwarves fight and dwarves drink and that is the crux of this game. You have a choice of 4 unique classes, each with their own weapons and abilities. You start off the tutorial as the Gunner. The gunner is the firepower in the team, he keeps you safe as long as you don’t get between his guns and the bugs.

Your first mission is a simple solo mining mission. However, you do get paired with a helpful mining robot APD-317, or Bosco to his friends. Joining you as well is your trusty M.U.L.E, affectionately named Molly. It’s a simple mission.

Go mine the crystals from the walls and deposit them into the M.U.L.E. Once you have reached the objective you call in a drop pod to come fetch you and take you back to the ship. You will have to fight off a few bugs along the way but in no time, you will have completed the tutorial and are ready to jump into the game. What makes this fun is that the cave systems are procedurally generated and everything is destructible.

Once you complete the tutorial you can pick any of the four classes and jump into a series of missions that take you through the different biomes of the planet Hoxxes IV as well as the different mission types on offer.

Classes

Each is equipped with a unique primary and secondary weapon that you can upgrade to suit your play style or to suit the mission type. You also have unique grenades, armour and specialisation equipment per class. There are a further 2 primary weapons and another secondary weapon that you can unlock through assignments, which are essentially just a series of missions that you need to complete.

The scout is the movement specialist, he can light the way and get to out of reach places with his grapple gun. The gunner can place zip lines and boasts a bubble shield. The Engineer can place turrets and platforms. The driller is equipped with drills and he carries a satchel charge to blow stuff up. The equipment and weapons are upgradable through class level gains and by using crafting materials found throughout the different biomes. You can play any dwarf you like but I have found that a team comprising one of each is the most fun.

Deep Missions

There are 8 basic mission types and every mission has a secondary mission of collecting a certain number of a specific items found in the caves you will also need to collect the crafting materials for your weapons and to craft special beers. The missions offer a good variety, from exploring and moving on a mineral mining mission to guarding points and items on a salvage mission, sabotage missions against a rival mining company offer a bit of both, there is an escorting a drilling machine as well as hunting and exterminating the big mommy bugs.

There are five levels of difficulty to choose from with each adding to your XP gained in the mission. Once you have levelled up a dwarf to level 25 and promoted them you will unlock deep dives. These are 3 missions completed back-to-back with your HP, ammo and minerals carrying over to the next mission. Each of these missions has 2 objectives that must be completed before you can move on to the next mission.

With the unique cave system and varied mission types the game keeps you coming back for more. The game is designed as a co-op game and it is with 3 friends that it plays best. The addition of the friendly mining robot Bosco means that the game is still fun just playing solo, at your own pace.

And just when you thought that you could not have more fun, you get to spend time in the ship. This is where you tinker with your load outs, buy and equip skills, make beer and ride barrels in the launch bay. You can even set up some goal posts and play a game of football. Management is a complete set of bastards that help mould your team into a tight knit brotherhood.

I highly recommend this game, and at long last the PlayStation crowd can Rock and Stone to the bone!

Wayne

For Karl!

The game is on Microsoft Gamepass for PC and Xbox and on the PS Plus lineup for January. Note that there is currently no crossplay between the different platforms. So, make sure you all are getting it in the same place. (Crossplay between Steam and Gamepass is also not available at time of writing)

+ posts