We cover in this review Deep Rock Galactic, the cooperative sci-fi shooter recently released from early access. The cooperative sci-fi Deep Rock Galactic is finally released in its version1.0, after about 2 years in early access. With this update the boys of Ghost Ship Games have only further refined what was already a small gem very appreciated by the players.
Deep Rock Galactic Review: Unmissable Cooperative Shooter
The basic concept of the game is simple, a team of maximum 4 dwarves, obviously miners, who make his way between mines procedurally rich in minerals, and dangerous enemies.
Behind this apparent simplicity, however, there is a very immersive atmosphere, and above all,one of the funniest cooperative titles of recent years. Let’s find out in this review.
Simply dwarfs
The gameplay can be summarized simply by taking all the elements always present in the common imagination about dwarfs and adding some firearms and technological gagdet.
We drink beer (a lot), break rocks with pickaxes, and make rough comments while fighting with the enemies who stand between us and our only goal: profit.
Briefly summarizing the context of the game, our team of dwarves is hired by a company not too interested in the safety of the employees, who will send us on a mission to the galaxy for the sole purpose of recovering precious minerals. After having sent the minerals to the spacecraft, in fact, this will leave after 5 minutes, with or without us.
Our dwarves can be of four different classes:Gunner, Borer, Scout and Engineer. Playing with 3 other dwarfs will no doubt have the best experience, with each class helping the rest of the teamin exploration and combat.
There will be those who make their way by lighting the way, who will mine by creating paths, who will cover their backs with others with turrets and defenses, and who will create practical escape routes.
Each dwarf has his trustypickaxe at his disposal, with which, of course, besides undermining precious stones, he can destroy any element of the procedurally generated maps.
Each class then has a main weapon and a secondary weapon to face the various enemies, and different gadgets with which to simplify the exploration. For example, there are 3 flares, useful for illuminating the cave, and which recharge themselves very quickly.
Resources fill the inventory fairly quickly, and to empty it they leave themselves to a robot,MULE, who will always follow our team of dwarves.
Of course, you can also play alone (in this case we will be accompanied by a sort of drone, Bosco), but you can immediately see thatthe game was not designed for this. The missions are certainly less fun, and are likely to result in the repetitive soon.
Character progression and personalization – Deep Rock Galactic Review
A space base will act as the central hub of the game, from which we can accept missions, customize the character, and of course, stop for a beer. The missions are all fairly simple in the objective, which is almost always to undermine a certain quantity of minerals. However, some missions are more focused on PvE, asking us to eliminate particularly powerful enemies.
You can choose the difficulty of each mission by adjusting the ”danger level“, which will influence the final gains. From the pause menu you can also access a complete guide for novice players.
Through terminals in the main hub we can really customize our character thoroughly. For each class we have a tree withmany skills to unlock, both active and passive. With other terminals we can customize the armor, accessories and face of our nano.
Through other terminals, we can then customize the pickaxe, weapons, and Bosco. All the items needed to customize can be purchased (with game credits,not microtransactions) from the store always in the hub.
A game for (almost) all PCs – Deep Rock Galactic Review
Not everyone owns a PC dedicated to gaming, and especially when cooperative gaming matters so much, accessibility in terms ofhardware requirementscan help a lot in the diffusion of the title.
Just in this Deep Rock Galactic succeeds perfectly, which with a very simple graphic style, can easily run even on PC with the fairly modest hardware equipment.
Apart from some sporadic scenarios, the graphic style of the game is still appreciable, even if it lacks a bit of identity. The absence of natural light, and the dim lighting of our front torch, however, help to create atruly suggestive atmosphere in the caves.
To accompany it all we have a soundtrackSynthagain not too characterized, but that does its duty anyway. Despite the simplicity of the graphics, we often find ourselves really admiring the beauty of the maps, which we remember being procedurally generated.
To increase even more the chances of being able to play easily in cooperative with friends there is also thecross-platform with the Xbox One version, which however requires a little clarification. On PC, the title is available both on Steam and on the Microsoft Store, in the Xbox Play Anywhere version.
This means that it will be enough to buy the title from the Microsoft Store to be able to play it both on our Xbox and on PC, also keeping all the progress.
Crossplay with the Xbox isonlyavailablewith the Microsoft Store version, and not with the Steam version. In addition, Steam players will not even be able to play alongside PC players who own the Microsoft Store version.
It is certainly a shame for those who prefer to always buy on Steam, which in addition to offering more advantageous prices, is undoubtedly a platform of much higher quality than the still immature one of the Microsoft store. For this time, however, it might be better to make an exception.
A cooperative game not to be missed
Concluding this review, Deep Rock Galactic was really a positive surprise, which highlights that as it should happen for every title in early access, the developers of Ghost Ship Gameshave actually given a lot of listening to the community.
The game is appreciable alone, but it really shines in a cooperative, imposing itself as one of the best co-op games released in recent years, which will be able to give countless hours of fun.