Deep Rock Galactic is a magical game in which there is a dedicated button on the controller to throw up your pickaxe and yell some variation of “ROCK AND STONE!” to your fellow dwarves. About to head out on a mission? ROCK AND STONE! Thanking your ally for a revive? ROCK AND STONE! Having drinks and dancing at the bar? ROCK! AND! STONE!
Deep Rock Galactic is easily one of my favorite multiplayer games of the last decade. It’s a co-operative 4-player game where you each take on the role of a different dwarf with their own unique loadouts including 2 guns, 1 traversal tool, 1 grenade, and 1 miscellaneous item. Every mission has you battling through hoards of crab-like alien things as you mine resources, capture alien eggs, repair lost equipment, or build sick grindrails to refine liquid metals. It is genuinely incredibly fun and is built to work the best in multiplayer as you’re all using your unique abilities to set up ziplines, drill holes, and build platforms around a level and try to keep each other alive.
Between missions, you’ll retire to your space station where you can drink beer, dance, and goof around kicking barrels. Or you can do actually important things like unlocking new weapons, abilities, and dumb cosmetics to personalize your dwarf’s appearance. The cosmetics in this game are mostly underwhelming, but the nice thing is it’s all free. The season pass and the in-game cosmetic shop are 100% free and there are no premium currencies in the game. But considering the quality of the cosmetics on the season pass, my group was never that enthusiastic about progressing through it to maybe unlock a slightly different mustache from the one I currently have, or different color of camo print for my armor.
The biggest drawback of the game is the late-game progression loop. Once you hit a certain level, you hit a wall - leveling slows down dramatically, you stop unlocking things quickly, and your time feels less rewarding. Additionally, while it’s fine to stick with your one favorite dwarf in the beginning, the late-game progression loop basically punishes you for not dividing your time between the 4 dwarves, which requires even more of a time investment. The endgame introduces a mechanic called “The Forge” which allows you to unlock unique weapon mods, weapon skins, and other cosmetics that you can’t get in the rest of the game. The problem is, it is completely random which dwarf you will unlock these items for. Despite the beards, hairstyles, weapon skins, and all other cosmetics being common across all dwarves, you only unlock access to any of those for one dwarf at a time. After about a dozen hours of endgame content, I unlocked maybe 4-5 items for my dwarf and 20 other items for the dwarves I was not playing as. Nothing lets the wind out of your sails more than spending 2 hours working through a challenging set of missions only to be rewarded with two items for a dwarf you don’t play. Instead of feeling motivated to bounce between different dwarves and triple-down on the time spent in the game, our group just felt like our time was wasted and got discouraged from even playing more of the endgame content.
Despite our frustrations with the endgame loop not feeling rewarding for casual play, our group still had a ton of fun with this game. I looked forward to our weekly mining adventures with our goofy dwarves and for the variety of in-game events Deep Rock Galactic had to offer. I expect we will check back in from time-to-time as they continue to update the game, but for now, after 60 hours of dedication to our dwarven friends, we hang up our pickaxes and give one final “Rock and Stone!”
+ Top-tier multiplayer fun
+ Great gameplay loop with good game feel
+ Good weapon and class variety
+ Fantastic personality with a great vibe
+ Good ongoing support
+ Season passes and cosmetics included for free
- End-game gets grindy
- Random rewards that often doesn't give you gear for your current character
- Missions can eventually get repetitive
- Cosmetics kind of boring
Deep Rock Galactic is easily one of my favorite multiplayer games of the last decade. It’s a co-operative 4-player game where you each take on the role of a different dwarf with their own unique loadouts including 2 guns, 1 traversal tool, 1 grenade, and 1 miscellaneous item. Every mission has you battling through hoards of crab-like alien things as you mine resources, capture alien eggs, repair lost equipment, or build sick grindrails to refine liquid metals. It is genuinely incredibly fun and is built to work the best in multiplayer as you’re all using your unique abilities to set up ziplines, drill holes, and build platforms around a level and try to keep each other alive.
Between missions, you’ll retire to your space station where you can drink beer, dance, and goof around kicking barrels. Or you can do actually important things like unlocking new weapons, abilities, and dumb cosmetics to personalize your dwarf’s appearance. The cosmetics in this game are mostly underwhelming, but the nice thing is it’s all free. The season pass and the in-game cosmetic shop are 100% free and there are no premium currencies in the game. But considering the quality of the cosmetics on the season pass, my group was never that enthusiastic about progressing through it to maybe unlock a slightly different mustache from the one I currently have, or different color of camo print for my armor.
The biggest drawback of the game is the late-game progression loop. Once you hit a certain level, you hit a wall - leveling slows down dramatically, you stop unlocking things quickly, and your time feels less rewarding. Additionally, while it’s fine to stick with your one favorite dwarf in the beginning, the late-game progression loop basically punishes you for not dividing your time between the 4 dwarves, which requires even more of a time investment. The endgame introduces a mechanic called “The Forge” which allows you to unlock unique weapon mods, weapon skins, and other cosmetics that you can’t get in the rest of the game. The problem is, it is completely random which dwarf you will unlock these items for. Despite the beards, hairstyles, weapon skins, and all other cosmetics being common across all dwarves, you only unlock access to any of those for one dwarf at a time. After about a dozen hours of endgame content, I unlocked maybe 4-5 items for my dwarf and 20 other items for the dwarves I was not playing as. Nothing lets the wind out of your sails more than spending 2 hours working through a challenging set of missions only to be rewarded with two items for a dwarf you don’t play. Instead of feeling motivated to bounce between different dwarves and triple-down on the time spent in the game, our group just felt like our time was wasted and got discouraged from even playing more of the endgame content.
Despite our frustrations with the endgame loop not feeling rewarding for casual play, our group still had a ton of fun with this game. I looked forward to our weekly mining adventures with our goofy dwarves and for the variety of in-game events Deep Rock Galactic had to offer. I expect we will check back in from time-to-time as they continue to update the game, but for now, after 60 hours of dedication to our dwarven friends, we hang up our pickaxes and give one final “Rock and Stone!”
+ Top-tier multiplayer fun
+ Great gameplay loop with good game feel
+ Good weapon and class variety
+ Fantastic personality with a great vibe
+ Good ongoing support
+ Season passes and cosmetics included for free
- End-game gets grindy
- Random rewards that often doesn't give you gear for your current character
- Missions can eventually get repetitive
- Cosmetics kind of boring