If you follow our site, you’ve probably gotten the hint that I freaking love Left 4 Dead, and anything even remotely similar. The frantic, never quite the same experience that I can play almost endlessly with other friends or solo has almost unlimited replay options; to this day it remains something that I pop in and it still feels fresh like it was released just days ago. On the other end of that spectrum for me is Minecraft. I know I’m one of the few people who feel this way, but I think it’s one of the most overrated and boring experiences out there, and it’s spawned countless knockoffs that are even worse than the original. To be honest, I’m not a huge fan of crafting to begin with, be It Skyrim or otherwise. But what if someone combined these genres into one single package? Well, the recent Steam/Xbox Early Access game Deep Rock Galactic has done just that, and the results are pretty good, despite the constant need to mine for materials.

You take on the role of a dwarf that is sent deep into intergalactic cave formations to mine for your employer. There isn’t much of a story beyond this currently, which results in you and up to three other players diving into randomly generated caves to mine for specific materials. These are selected from a map which changes events regularly, similar to the Injustice 2 multiverse mode. Each cavern you explore will require you to look for a different type of mineral, which vary and become easy to recognize once you get a grasp on what you’re looking for. Sounds easy enough, right? The catch is there’s not always an easy path to find what you need, so you’ll need to carve a path through rocks and other items in the environment, which is 100% destructible to reach you goal. I know, using a pickaxe or other tool to dig through dirt doesn’t sound that interesting; luckily for the player, there’s a bunch of oversized bugs and creatures that don’t appreciate you wrecking their homes. That said, you’ll need to work as a team to dispatch these monstrosities or farm materials, and then make it to an escape pod alive upon completion.

There are 4 classes to choose from, and each can be customized after using your collected resources to craft upgrades. Most of this appears to be visual, but I have my fingers crossed some additional weapons are added in the full release to add some more variety to the game. While no class is outright better than the others, it will come down to which role you prefer when selecting your character as some are more suited to dealing with enemies than looting the area. Regardless of the role you choose, the game controls very well.

The visuals are beautifully realized and feature stylized graphics. While they do the trick, they are nothing spectacular when compared against other games released on current gen machines… except for the lighting. The lighting is phenomenal, whether you’re using your flares or a headlamp; these effects are top notch and should be observed by some of the bigger companies failing to deliver in this aspect in their AAA offerings. These help build tension and make sure you’re only seeing what’s a few feet in front of you, occasionally getting a rise out of the player in the event a creature comes out of nowhere, pouncing from the darkness. This almost makes the game play like a cartoonish version of the film Aliens.

There is a decent amount of variety between the levels, but the experience itself rarely changes. In its current state, I’ve even managed to complete a few levels without even seeing an enemy. I am not sure if this was due to a glitch being that this is in early access, or I was simply lucky (unlucky in my case, since I had an itchy trigger finger) and didn’t make them aware of my presence. Aside from this instance and some networking issues, this game has been relatively bug free, despite being newly added to the Early Access catalog. While we were kindly provided multiple codes for the title, I have yet to be able to successfully party up with my comrades beyond goofing off and browsing the options and areas within the hub ship. I know during one of our sessions Xbox Live was experiencing an outage; however, this has been prevalent since we received them and we typically do not have issues playing other titles together. Once finding the not so obvious matchmaking option through the online menus, I was able to play with other random players. Sadly, random disconnects are a regular issue for me in this, whereas it’s hardly a problem in other games.

With the exception of the networking issues, Deep Rock Galactic feels more finished than a number of recent retail releases at launch. With its tight, intuitive controls and stylish visuals already in place, I hope to see the full release soon and look forward to providing my updated thoughts on the title.

 

Deep Rock Galactic is being developed by Ghost Ship Games and published by Coffee Stain Publishing. It was released on Steam Early Access and Xbox Game Preview on February 28th, 2018 for $24.99. The game was provided to us for preview on X1. For more on Deep Rock Galactic, visit its official site.