“PROFOUNDLY UNSATISFYING”
In my last review, I briefly mentioned that I’d put 92 hours into FFVII Rebirth and that I’d started feeling both “physically and mentally unwell”. Much like Cloud Strife who suffers from severe Mako poisoning, induced via prolonged exposure to an element that is normally beneficial in smaller amounts, I had unintentionally poisoned myself from overexposure to Final Fantasy VII.
I needed a break. A detox. Between 12+ hour long play sessions (quite literally, before or after) I’d play a round or two of Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor.
I’d played the DRG:S playtest last year and walked away feeling generally positive. I thought it was an interesting foundation for a Survivors-like game. Now that it’s been in Early Access for over a month, I’ve racked up well over 20 hours. I think I’m now qualified to say this might be the most unsatisfying Survivors-like game I’ve ever played.
It really is that simple. Done and dusted. I could have easily chosen not to write a review for this game after all. But it’s the HOW and WHY this game is so unsatisfying that compels me to type this now.
At launch, there are four characters to choose from (one unlocked from the jump, three you need to progress to unlock) with three discrete classes for each character. These classes also need to be unlocked (each character’s first class is unlocked by default). Each character/class has access to different weapons, although there is noticeable overlap in terms of weapon availability between characters.
There are currently three biomes (a fourth biome was just added, more on this towards the end) and five hazard (difficulty) levels for each biome, each with unique objectives that contribute to the game’s meta-progression (i.e. new weapons, characters, classes, artifacts, etc.).
So, don’t worry about all this too much, let’s just focus on an average run in DRG:S. You pick a character, pick a class, and drop into a level.
The first thing you’ll notice in how DRG:S differs from other Survivors-like games is that its levels are procedurally generated, and rather cramped. DRG:S puts a big focus on mining for resources, the two most common being Gold and Nitra, although players can also mine rock (and stone!) to open new pathways, circumvent enemies, etc. On paper, this rules; in practice… it’s fine, but in a general sense, it works. There’s nothing egregious in what it attempts.
All right, so you’re playing the game now. Your character shoots some bugs, mines some minerals, and eventually levels up. You can only pick a new weapon at Levels 5, 15, and 25. It’s an interesting idea but one that makes the rhythm of progression noticeably lopsided.
Survivors-like games are not intended as longform endurance tests. They’re very simple arcadey games by design. DRG:S understand this but almost overcompensates by adding extraction game elements? Every run or “dive” is separated into five randomly generated levels, each around five-ish minutes long. As players explore and collect minerals, they’re also being attacked by bugs, and after players kill a certain amount of bugs (I believe the level progress meter is determined by bugs killed and not just a timer), a boss enemy called an “Elite” appears, at which point a countdown begins – if players don’t kill the Elite enemy in about 30 seconds (give or take), the bugs “grow stronger” for every tick (15 seconds or so) until the player is completely overwhelmed. If the player manages to defeat the Elite, the drop pod arrives to deliver them to the next area – but will leave without the player if they don’t enter the pod within 30 seconds, thereby ending their run.
DRG:S really, really wants players to manage their time wisely, but this feels like too much. On the first two hazard levels, this isn’t a major issue, I think it’s only when attempting Hazards 3 and 4 that it feels like almost too much RNG is happening.
It’s especially annoying as Elite enemies also gain ridiculous amounts of HP on higher Hazard levels, to the point where “Sudden Death” feels more like a promise instead of a punishment.
I also can’t overstate how many runs end during this “Sudden Death” phase, either. If the ridiculous amount of onscreen enemies doesn’t kill you, it’s definitely the drop pod timer. Again, on its own, the drop pod timer is fine. It’s only after entering Sudden Death and having the amount of bugs + enemy damage grow exponentially that both of these elements feel like being trapped between a rock and a hard place. I’m not stupid. I know this is by design. I’m just saying that it feels bad.
When Helldivers 2 released to glowing praise from critics and players alike last month, I remember reading a Twitter thread (that I cannot locate for the life of me) which wanted to explain why that game’s core gameplay loop was so satisfying. One particular phrase that stuck with me was the fodder enemies were described as being, “popcorn enemies”. After hearing that phrase, I started to realize how important these enemies were: they’re not meant just as cannon fodder, but as a collective unit – like bubble wrap for the bigger, beefier enemies that you’re meant to “pop” around the real big targets. Popcorn.
DRG:S’s popcorn enemies are not popcorn. On Hazards 1-2 maybe, but Hazards 3-4? They’re not popcorn. They’re small, inordinate, and deal way too much damage. Not only do they deal considerable damage, but because of the game’s isometric perspective, they’ll often disappear behind rock/stone. At present, the game offers no shadow/outline or anything to make these enemies visible, and the result is players taking constant, oftentimes avoidable damage.
After entering Sudden Death, these enemies can often hit for 30-40 damage apiece (keep in mind, this is with the regular armor/HP upgrades almost maxed out) which is a good 15-20% of the average character’s health bar (before acquiring armor/HP upgrades during a run, that is). Additionally, there are no i-frames between taking damage, meaning if you decide to run through a horde of fodder enemies, you’re sacrificing most of your health bar for every second you’re in physical contact with an enemy.
Beyond all this, however, there’s also no recompense in death. If you die, that’s it. No extra lives. No revivals. Miss your drop pod and it’s game over.
The game grants some leniency in the “dodge” mechanic, although its functionality seems limited to one class, and one artifact. It gives players a small chance to negate incoming damage, but it’s not a stat that can be upgraded.
Besides all this though, the weapons aren’t good. Although it is mechanically similar to Vampire Survivors’ preset weapon patterns, the most useful weapons are those that lock onto enemies automatically – in a sense, I would argue these are the only viable weapons.
Weapons either target the closet enemy, the enemy with the most HP, random enemies, or have a preset pattern. Avoid weapons that shoot in four directions or only shoot in front of your character, as these are often unwieldy at best and almost useless at worst.
Obviously you want weapons that target the closest enemy, although targeting the enemy with the most HP (as in Elites) is also very useful. The implementation of these weapons reminds me of another Survivors-like game I’ve played previously, “Yet Another Zombie Survivors” where the developers knew that the game was mechanically very simple, yet a little too chaotic with the amount of enemies onscreen, so all weapons automatically lock onto enemies. Seems like a no-brainer.
Both games have AoE weapons and throwables, too, but how DRG:S handles weapon upgrades is objectively (imo) worse. “Yet Another Zombie Survivors” gives players a variety of weapons to choose from, although only after upgrading your character’s main weapon to max level are you allowed to choose an “upgrade path”. Each weapon/ability can only be upgraded 4-5 times max. That means eventually players will upgrade each of their weapons/abilities, and move onto incremental stat upgrades (damage, reload speed, armor, HP, etc.). Vampire Survivors also does this, with weapons and items having specific synergies and upgrade paths, which later rewards players with incremental stat upgrades once each is maxed out.
DRG:S only has incremental stat upgrades. That’s it.
I hope you can understand why this might be boring. There are “Overclock” abilities that weapons unlock every six levels, but most of these are (frankly) underwhelming. Some choice Overclock upgrades include stuff like +25% damage and +25% fire rate (essentially two epic upgrades for one weapon rolled into one, which is a waste of an Overclock), or -25% Damage for the one weapon and +25% Damage for every other weapon. There are good Overclocks, but the best Overclocks are usually at Level 18 – and upgrading any weapon to Level 18 is a hassle, and there’s also no guarantee you’ll even get the Overclock you want. You also can’t reroll Overclocks.
The Overclock system also creates two problems: 1) before you can Overclock a weapon, you need to upgrade it to Level 12 in a regular run first, which means dedicating a significant amount of one run to upgrading a weapon so that it will be slightly better in later dives, and 2) there will be certain upgrades called Paint Jobs which are only meant to increase weapon level by 2/3/4 and offer no incremental stat increases otherwise, existing only so that players can obtain each Overclock slightly faster.
I think you could fix these problems in two ways: 1) remove the Level 12 requirement for Overclocking, it’s unnecessary padding; 2) have rare/epic/legendary upgrades raise weapon levels by 2/3/4 by default, so players obtain more Overclocks faster, thereby eliminating some tedium in Paint Job upgrades.
Additionally, I’m not sure if this is the RNG, but I feel like the game gives you a lot of weapon upgrades but hardly any HP/armor/critical/speed/mining upgrades. There’s also no easy way to view the weapon/stats increase when selecting an upgrade, you have to switch between the upgrade screen and the screen which shows your current weapons upgrades/stats. The game should realistically have both of these on the same screen just to improve overall UI/UX.
To tell you the truth, although I originally played DRG:S using the keyboard, I genuinely liked using the Gamepad much more. I wish that there was a mechanic to aim certain weapons with the right analog stick or mouse, because it feels like weapons with preset patterns are wildly ineffective without player input.
Really though, after 20 hours and one content update (the Salt Pits), I’ve reached a wall. Hazard 4 is too much. I’ve maxed out almost every persistent upgrade and the difficulty curve is still much, much too steep. There’s a person who has sunk 90 hours into this game and has not progressed Hazard 4. And honestly, as much as I acknowledge that all critique/criticism should be constructive, I can confidently say that I will not be committing 70 more hours to this game to unlock or attempt Hazard 5.
Also, with this latest update, even loading into the Salt Pits causes my entire OS to literally freeze and crash, and apparently this is a common bug that a lot of people have been experiencing?? I’ve never had a game cause my entire system to crash before. Anyways I’ll probably be retiring from this game for now.
tl;dr difficulty needs to be fine-tuned, game freezes/crashes my OS now so I probably won’t be playing for a while. I’d probably wait on buying this if I were you.
In my last review, I briefly mentioned that I’d put 92 hours into FFVII Rebirth and that I’d started feeling both “physically and mentally unwell”. Much like Cloud Strife who suffers from severe Mako poisoning, induced via prolonged exposure to an element that is normally beneficial in smaller amounts, I had unintentionally poisoned myself from overexposure to Final Fantasy VII.
I needed a break. A detox. Between 12+ hour long play sessions (quite literally, before or after) I’d play a round or two of Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor.
I’d played the DRG:S playtest last year and walked away feeling generally positive. I thought it was an interesting foundation for a Survivors-like game. Now that it’s been in Early Access for over a month, I’ve racked up well over 20 hours. I think I’m now qualified to say this might be the most unsatisfying Survivors-like game I’ve ever played.
It really is that simple. Done and dusted. I could have easily chosen not to write a review for this game after all. But it’s the HOW and WHY this game is so unsatisfying that compels me to type this now.
At launch, there are four characters to choose from (one unlocked from the jump, three you need to progress to unlock) with three discrete classes for each character. These classes also need to be unlocked (each character’s first class is unlocked by default). Each character/class has access to different weapons, although there is noticeable overlap in terms of weapon availability between characters.
There are currently three biomes (a fourth biome was just added, more on this towards the end) and five hazard (difficulty) levels for each biome, each with unique objectives that contribute to the game’s meta-progression (i.e. new weapons, characters, classes, artifacts, etc.).
So, don’t worry about all this too much, let’s just focus on an average run in DRG:S. You pick a character, pick a class, and drop into a level.
The first thing you’ll notice in how DRG:S differs from other Survivors-like games is that its levels are procedurally generated, and rather cramped. DRG:S puts a big focus on mining for resources, the two most common being Gold and Nitra, although players can also mine rock (and stone!) to open new pathways, circumvent enemies, etc. On paper, this rules; in practice… it’s fine, but in a general sense, it works. There’s nothing egregious in what it attempts.
All right, so you’re playing the game now. Your character shoots some bugs, mines some minerals, and eventually levels up. You can only pick a new weapon at Levels 5, 15, and 25. It’s an interesting idea but one that makes the rhythm of progression noticeably lopsided.
Survivors-like games are not intended as longform endurance tests. They’re very simple arcadey games by design. DRG:S understand this but almost overcompensates by adding extraction game elements? Every run or “dive” is separated into five randomly generated levels, each around five-ish minutes long. As players explore and collect minerals, they’re also being attacked by bugs, and after players kill a certain amount of bugs (I believe the level progress meter is determined by bugs killed and not just a timer), a boss enemy called an “Elite” appears, at which point a countdown begins – if players don’t kill the Elite enemy in about 30 seconds (give or take), the bugs “grow stronger” for every tick (15 seconds or so) until the player is completely overwhelmed. If the player manages to defeat the Elite, the drop pod arrives to deliver them to the next area – but will leave without the player if they don’t enter the pod within 30 seconds, thereby ending their run.
DRG:S really, really wants players to manage their time wisely, but this feels like too much. On the first two hazard levels, this isn’t a major issue, I think it’s only when attempting Hazards 3 and 4 that it feels like almost too much RNG is happening.
It’s especially annoying as Elite enemies also gain ridiculous amounts of HP on higher Hazard levels, to the point where “Sudden Death” feels more like a promise instead of a punishment.
I also can’t overstate how many runs end during this “Sudden Death” phase, either. If the ridiculous amount of onscreen enemies doesn’t kill you, it’s definitely the drop pod timer. Again, on its own, the drop pod timer is fine. It’s only after entering Sudden Death and having the amount of bugs + enemy damage grow exponentially that both of these elements feel like being trapped between a rock and a hard place. I’m not stupid. I know this is by design. I’m just saying that it feels bad.
When Helldivers 2 released to glowing praise from critics and players alike last month, I remember reading a Twitter thread (that I cannot locate for the life of me) which wanted to explain why that game’s core gameplay loop was so satisfying. One particular phrase that stuck with me was the fodder enemies were described as being, “popcorn enemies”. After hearing that phrase, I started to realize how important these enemies were: they’re not meant just as cannon fodder, but as a collective unit – like bubble wrap for the bigger, beefier enemies that you’re meant to “pop” around the real big targets. Popcorn.
DRG:S’s popcorn enemies are not popcorn. On Hazards 1-2 maybe, but Hazards 3-4? They’re not popcorn. They’re small, inordinate, and deal way too much damage. Not only do they deal considerable damage, but because of the game’s isometric perspective, they’ll often disappear behind rock/stone. At present, the game offers no shadow/outline or anything to make these enemies visible, and the result is players taking constant, oftentimes avoidable damage.
After entering Sudden Death, these enemies can often hit for 30-40 damage apiece (keep in mind, this is with the regular armor/HP upgrades almost maxed out) which is a good 15-20% of the average character’s health bar (before acquiring armor/HP upgrades during a run, that is). Additionally, there are no i-frames between taking damage, meaning if you decide to run through a horde of fodder enemies, you’re sacrificing most of your health bar for every second you’re in physical contact with an enemy.
Beyond all this, however, there’s also no recompense in death. If you die, that’s it. No extra lives. No revivals. Miss your drop pod and it’s game over.
The game grants some leniency in the “dodge” mechanic, although its functionality seems limited to one class, and one artifact. It gives players a small chance to negate incoming damage, but it’s not a stat that can be upgraded.
Besides all this though, the weapons aren’t good. Although it is mechanically similar to Vampire Survivors’ preset weapon patterns, the most useful weapons are those that lock onto enemies automatically – in a sense, I would argue these are the only viable weapons.
Weapons either target the closet enemy, the enemy with the most HP, random enemies, or have a preset pattern. Avoid weapons that shoot in four directions or only shoot in front of your character, as these are often unwieldy at best and almost useless at worst.
Obviously you want weapons that target the closest enemy, although targeting the enemy with the most HP (as in Elites) is also very useful. The implementation of these weapons reminds me of another Survivors-like game I’ve played previously, “Yet Another Zombie Survivors” where the developers knew that the game was mechanically very simple, yet a little too chaotic with the amount of enemies onscreen, so all weapons automatically lock onto enemies. Seems like a no-brainer.
Both games have AoE weapons and throwables, too, but how DRG:S handles weapon upgrades is objectively (imo) worse. “Yet Another Zombie Survivors” gives players a variety of weapons to choose from, although only after upgrading your character’s main weapon to max level are you allowed to choose an “upgrade path”. Each weapon/ability can only be upgraded 4-5 times max. That means eventually players will upgrade each of their weapons/abilities, and move onto incremental stat upgrades (damage, reload speed, armor, HP, etc.). Vampire Survivors also does this, with weapons and items having specific synergies and upgrade paths, which later rewards players with incremental stat upgrades once each is maxed out.
DRG:S only has incremental stat upgrades. That’s it.
I hope you can understand why this might be boring. There are “Overclock” abilities that weapons unlock every six levels, but most of these are (frankly) underwhelming. Some choice Overclock upgrades include stuff like +25% damage and +25% fire rate (essentially two epic upgrades for one weapon rolled into one, which is a waste of an Overclock), or -25% Damage for the one weapon and +25% Damage for every other weapon. There are good Overclocks, but the best Overclocks are usually at Level 18 – and upgrading any weapon to Level 18 is a hassle, and there’s also no guarantee you’ll even get the Overclock you want. You also can’t reroll Overclocks.
The Overclock system also creates two problems: 1) before you can Overclock a weapon, you need to upgrade it to Level 12 in a regular run first, which means dedicating a significant amount of one run to upgrading a weapon so that it will be slightly better in later dives, and 2) there will be certain upgrades called Paint Jobs which are only meant to increase weapon level by 2/3/4 and offer no incremental stat increases otherwise, existing only so that players can obtain each Overclock slightly faster.
I think you could fix these problems in two ways: 1) remove the Level 12 requirement for Overclocking, it’s unnecessary padding; 2) have rare/epic/legendary upgrades raise weapon levels by 2/3/4 by default, so players obtain more Overclocks faster, thereby eliminating some tedium in Paint Job upgrades.
Additionally, I’m not sure if this is the RNG, but I feel like the game gives you a lot of weapon upgrades but hardly any HP/armor/critical/speed/mining upgrades. There’s also no easy way to view the weapon/stats increase when selecting an upgrade, you have to switch between the upgrade screen and the screen which shows your current weapons upgrades/stats. The game should realistically have both of these on the same screen just to improve overall UI/UX.
To tell you the truth, although I originally played DRG:S using the keyboard, I genuinely liked using the Gamepad much more. I wish that there was a mechanic to aim certain weapons with the right analog stick or mouse, because it feels like weapons with preset patterns are wildly ineffective without player input.
Really though, after 20 hours and one content update (the Salt Pits), I’ve reached a wall. Hazard 4 is too much. I’ve maxed out almost every persistent upgrade and the difficulty curve is still much, much too steep. There’s a person who has sunk 90 hours into this game and has not progressed Hazard 4. And honestly, as much as I acknowledge that all critique/criticism should be constructive, I can confidently say that I will not be committing 70 more hours to this game to unlock or attempt Hazard 5.
Also, with this latest update, even loading into the Salt Pits causes my entire OS to literally freeze and crash, and apparently this is a common bug that a lot of people have been experiencing?? I’ve never had a game cause my entire system to crash before. Anyways I’ll probably be retiring from this game for now.
tl;dr difficulty needs to be fine-tuned, game freezes/crashes my OS now so I probably won’t be playing for a while. I’d probably wait on buying this if I were you.