Deep Rock Galactic, developed by Ghost Ship Games, is an up to 4 player first person co-operative shooter with a element of extraction that takes place over a mineral rich planet called Hoxxes IV.
It is a fairly standard mission to collect resources with a optional secondary objective. It is an environment that eases one into the game as one gets used to the controls and helps one understand gameplay elements such as having limited capacity that encourages one to deposit frequently in their mobile M.U.L.E unit.
It also helps to inform the player that ammunition is limited and is reliant on calling in more ammo by mining a resource called "Nitra", which is the only currency that the company accepts viable for payment.
The ammo drop consists of four refill packages and each package fills half your maximum ammo for all your gear.
The mission itself is not too bad and it gives the player a taste of the game and its mechanics and even throws in a swarm event or two to test them on.
When one has completed their objectives, a button appears on your M.U.L.E and when pressed starts the countdown to extract. While this counter goes down, your M.U.L.E proceeds to mark out the path back to your extraction with intermittent beacons. Once the M.U.L.E arrived at extraction, it will be automatically secured, the extraction doors will open and once all dwarves have entered the pod does the mission count as completed.
Completing the mission shows the player that they get rewarded in credits and experience based on their performance ( which is multiplied by the difficulty level) and any extra resources that was mined and deposited by mission end, which also includes any resources dwarves have carried aboard and escaped with.
Once one has completed the tutorial, can one freely choose between one of the 4 unique classes in the game being the
Engineer:
- Focuses on turrets and there platform creating gun.
- Primary weapons revolve a choice between a shotgun or one of two SMGs, where the shotgun has a balance of fire rate and power with the SMGs having specialised functions with a electric element and tracking functions respectively
- Secondary weapons is selection of powerful AOE weapons with a selection between a grenade launcher or deciding between the two beam based weaponry options
Driller:
Great for making paths with a powered drill and explosive charges.
Primary weapons make use of chemical-based heavy weapons that come in fire, ice and chemical flavours
The secondary weapons is a selection of pistols and a SMG that are more suit fire rate and charge capabilities.
Scout:
Is a self-description with a traversal tool grappling hook and a flare launcher that provides a long lasting wide area light source.
Primary weapons consists of assault rifles which focus on fire rate and a semi-automatic rifle focused on power
Secondary weapons has a wider variety with a selection between a sawed-off shotgun, SMG and a tactical crossbow
Gunner
takes the role of a tank and group traversal expert with shield generator and zipline launcher
Primary weapons are a selection of heavy ballistic weaponry that range between rapid fire and guided projectiles
Secondary weapons are a collection of pistols that specialise in either power or fire rate
As you play with your dwarves, they level up and upon reaching certain level thresholds do they unlock access to licenses that unlock, at the time of writing, 2 additional types of primary and secondary weapons. Your grenade slot is level gated and one can purchase from a selection of 3 additional grenade types.
In addition to this, weapons, pick axe, traversal, class specific equpiment and armour each have their own set of addition skill choices, that are also level-locked, that requires the player to spend resources to unlock.
Weapons and Bosco also a have a system of milestones that are unlocked by purchasing upgrades which provide a number colour palettes ( in the case of Bosco includes a skin change) to further customise a look and with armour upgrades having milestones that increases your dwarf's health. Recently added is another system that rewards players playing with a specific weapon with experience when used in missions and when it levels up unlocks a colour palette to show off your appreciation for a weapon.
Even though the game is designed for multiplayer, there is a single player helper called Bosco, who is a floating robotic drone that is armed with a sub-machine gun and small supply of rechargeable rockets that require dwarven guidance. It acts as an all-purpose team mate that can fight, mine, provide light and revive a player during missions if one prefers to enjoy a solo experience.
Speaking of beers, the selection is quite extensive and the effects are diverse, it is a great way to spend excess hard earned resources on a bit of fun and can be used as an additional challenge dropping into a mission under the influence. It is a great mechanic that can be used for a laugh and a great way to end a play session.
When one or a team is ready to dive, a mission is selected from the command console, dwarves load up into an orbital drop pod and proceed to a section of the planet below. Every mission is randomly generated, with it taking part in one of the 10 biome types, spread over one of the 8 mission types, that each can have a combination of different modifiers that can be both good and bad while still having the chance to have one of the many different random encounters including unique and season specific enemies, special events or a chance of locating special loot "crates" that drop unique cosmetic gear.
It does a very good job of making sure no two standard missions are the same and it provides this over the selection of 5 difficulty setting, of which the hardest difficulty requires the completion of a series specifically hard missions to qualify.
As a player completes missions they gradually build up completion towards unlocking milestone stars or perk points which is the currency to unlock perks. The perk tree has good selection of perks and although there are some that have lower value in higher difficulty content they at least have some fun elements to them if one decides to play less seriously or take it easy on a lower difficult level.
When a player reaches max rank for a dwarf, they can promote them and once the one has at
least one dwarf promoted does the game open up the higher level content and
gear. The first promotion also unlocks a once-off additional active perk slot and
allows the opportunity to have up to 3 passive and 2 active perks once the
relevant passive perks have been unlocked.
The big draw to promoting is having access to Deep Dives which come in two flavours, one that is a fair challenge on normal Deep Dives and then Elite Deep Dives which boast the highest difficulty tier multipliers. What makes it difficult is that it is a series of 3 missions done consecutively and any resources or lack thereof carries over from mission to mission. It can lead to some tense situations where resources run low and one struggles with keeping well stocked with ammunition and the struggle to find the resources to call in some.
One of the biggest incentives to do Deep Dives and a special assignment called a "Weekly Core Hunt" is the reliable source of weapon cores for the creation of weapons modifications - called Overclocks or OCs for short. This mod system creates an additional layer of weapon modification as each weapon has its own overclock sets and allows one to decide between:
Stable which provides a modest boost with no downsides
Balanced that offers a good boost or something that enhances its abilities with a moderate downside
Unstable which deals with more experimental effects that can dramatically change the firing profile of a weapon or how it functions with a large disadvantage to match.
Each weapon can only slot one overclock in and it is a great system to allow players to customise their favourite weapons into a specific niche or style of play.
Promotions after the first one serve as a means to increase the player level, that is the effective level across all dwarf usage, to unlock additional cosmetic content missions and rewards a blank core, a weapon core, cosmetic core and modifies the respective Dwarf's rank with a star which on the collection of the fourth star modifies the respective Dwarf's Border framing with a new rank colour and resets the star amount. This process can repeat up to six times where a dwarf can earn the rank of a "Legendary Miner".
The player can continue to promote their dwarves after this point but for now its only purpose is to increase the players level and act as a resource sink as leveling does require increasingly larger amounts to unlock later promotions.
Something that was also introduced after launch was the arrival of seasons that brings with it a season pass with its own level system and associated resource that allows the player to unlock mining resources, cosmetics and new weapon skins. Any content not unlocked by the end of the season gets rotated into the game's special loot table which can be found from random unique loot caches, which makes the pass more a means collect these cosmetic items in a far less random manner.
So far seasons have been delivered over two parts with the first part introducing a theme and the second part expanding it with an evolution of it while sprinkling new content in between seasons and updates
All these systems in game provide a lot of content that sells for a very reasonable price. It strikes a great balance between being a game for those that just want to relax with either, preferably and recommended with, friends or on their own and still offers content to those that want a more engaging experience with the higher level content more geared towards team play and deeper game knowledge and with the difficulty setting allows something in between that as well.
Deep Rock Galactic is a game one can enjoy solo, but the real joy and social experience comes through with playing with others. It is game where playing with randoms or with a friend group feels like the intended experience with systems that encourage teamwork and silly fun. The game's difficulty accounts for a wide variety of skill levels and by the way they mix the cooperation element into the gamepaly ensures that that each dwarf has a role to play which encourages players to communicate and work together that radiates a certain charm that is difficult to hate.
Also Ghost Ship Games has done a commendable job in regards to still providing support for the game
which it has provided new content after its release at no additional cost and releases DLC
packages - being cosmetic only - acting as more of a supporter pack
to show appreciation for their hard work. They have made a game first and the
core experience is based off playing it and that gaming loop has, I feel, introduced a positive contribution to
the cooperative multiplayer gaming ecosystem.
Image Source:
Steam: Ghost Ship Games Season 5 Roadmap
Video Source:
Deep Rock Galactic Official 1.0 Launch Trailer
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