Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor Review – Rock, Stone, and Bullets

Deep Rock Galactic has been one of the more successful co-op games for years, gaining a lot of goodwill with its fans due to its constant updates and fair live service monetization. The game has garnered a dedicated and passionate community, and when the publisher announced a new single-player game, there was considerable hype and excitement.

Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor, developed by Funday Games and published by Ghost Ship Publishing, is a bullet hell with rogue-like elements, with challenging and fast-paced combat, and the familiar environments and voice lines of Deep Rock Galactic. The game had a few months of additional development during its early access and is now officially released.

I had not seen any footage of the game before starting it, so the first thing I noticed was the lack of any weapon models or animations. This, of course, made sense as I played longer and realized I get up to four and sometimes even five weapons at a time, and they all shoot automatically as I mine and explore the map. And that’s the overall gameplay loop. It’s simple, fun, and strangely engaging.

Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor has the typical vibes and elements from the main game. Mining resources and minerals that we can use to buy upgrades, hordes of space bugs, supply drops, and a variety of weapons. It does feel like a fun and compact recreation of the original experience, and the rogue-like elements do give it a unique distinction and progression that makes it stand out on its own.

There’s also a lot of variety to the gameplay. There are multiple game modes with increasing difficulties, four unique character classes with different bonuses and weapons, and five distinct biomes with their own environmental hazards and features. I’ve already played Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor for over 20 hours, and I still have a lot to do in the game. One flaw I did notice after reaching the fourth difficulty level in the main missions is that the size of the enemy swarms gets larger in higher difficulties, leading to some worrying performance issues. I have not unlocked any of the missions at the highest difficulty, and if the performance issues get much worse, it might cause serious problems in game progression.

The controls are decently simple; we don’t really operate the weapons, and all we need to do is move. On a keyboard, the WASD keybindings work well enough, but I imagine a controller will offer even a better experience. The maneuverability is a bit limited on the keyboard, and I wish the game offered the option to use the mouse for movement, too. The controls during movement can also interfere with choosing powers when leveling up. On the level-up screen, you can either use the mouse or use the keyboard to select one of three upgrades, and these interrupt gameplay when you level up, usually in the middle of movement. I did pick the wrong upgrade a few times because of this specific interaction.

There are a few different progression systems in Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor. Character levels, missions, talents, masteries, and gear will either unlock new weapons or powers or give small advantages to our capabilities. The feature bloat can get a little overwhelming in the long run, making it hard to understand and manage all of these systems, and it is an issue that I used to have with the main game as well. Harder difficulties of the game are also extremely challenging, meaning I do need to min-max and optimize everything in order to overcome the harder challenges.

The visual design of the game is overall enjoyable. The style and themes follow the original game pretty closely. There are additional skin packs that you can purchase for cosmetic customizations, but nothing that affects the gameplay. Some of the visual effects, such as explosions and damage numbers, can make the screen extremely cluttered in higher difficulties and cause issues with vision and navigation, but there are options to turn off some of these elements in the settings.

The music is pretty decent as well, and the occasional voice lines, which have made Deep Rock Galactic popular, can be heard in certain situations as well. But the constant weapon and monster sounds can get a bit repetitive over longer play sessions, and I ended up turning them off. I did find the settings and customizations a bit minimal in some areas, but thankfully, there are different options to adjust the SFX volume and still hear the music and voice lines during missions.

Even though I’ve played Deep Rock Galactic for a bit in recent years, I never got too deep into it and have only about 10 hours in that game. Yet, I connected with Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor much more than I expected. The simple yet engaging gameplay, the progression, and the cheeky voicelines had me hooked, and I played anytime I had some free time, and I imagine I will continue to do so. I’m sure dedicated players of the original game will enjoy this new take on the theme, but considering my own experience, it’s not limited in its appeal and has the potential to be a fun and challenging experience for players new to the franchise.

Nima reviewed Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor on PC with a provided review copy.