Game review by Joost Slootweg - QA Tester at Abstraction
Image credits: Steam
Your drop pod crashes into some faraway planet; the drills underneath the pod chewing up the ground take you to a tunnel far below the surface. Your colleague raises his pickaxe into the air, shouting. Your colleague is a Dwarf; you are a Dwarf too, with a minigun. As the pod opens, you see a dark tunnel stretch out before you, gems glittering in the light of the flare you throw into the dark. "ROCK AND STONE!" you shout as you jump into the subterranean unknown.
The mission is simple: explore the cave systems, mine gems, retrieve alien eggs, or whatever else corporate requests. Your primary tool is your trusty pickaxe, which you will frequently use to extract gleaming veins of gold or precious gems or create a path towards said valuables. Meanwhile, mission control will keep you updated about any swarms of aliens in the area and your immediate goals. These aliens will mostly come in swarms and will need to be taken down with your primary weapon, sidearm, grenades, and when ammo runs out, your good old pickaxe. Mined gems need to be dropped off into a mobile mining cart since you can only carry so much of each resource.
You can play as several classes of Dwarf, each with its unique weapons and abilities. The gunner, for example, has a minigun, a pistol, and a gadget that lets you place ziplines that can be used to travel up, down, or across the caverns. Exploring is a delight, especially with a friend, mining valuables and fighting the swarms of aliens feels like a high-octane adventure. After each mission, you must call in the dropship from the mobile mining cart then leg it towards the landing zone. You must keep up and reach the location in time, or it will take off without you.
Back at the mothership, you can use collected resources to upgrade your arsenal or buy cosmetics. Mainly moustaches and beards. So many moustaches and beards… The game has loads of atmosphere, a great art style, fun co-op possibilities and gruff Dwarven voice acting. We totally recommend giving this one a try!
If we piqued your interest, you can find Deep Rock Galactic on Steam via the following link:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/548430/Deep_Rock_Galactic/