Deep Rock Galactic: space dwarves mining and killing!

[wonko the sane?]

Been enjoying this lovely title for a while now. As we know, I have a type: so it's an open world, survival, crafting, simulation... what? It's NOT?!?!? It's a mission based, up to four player cooperative run and gun? You choose your class (and you can change this at any time using the terminal in your quarters.) pick a mission, there's a bunch of different kinds to choose from: escorts, mining runs, drilling runs, egg hunts... Board the drop pod and hit the dirt running!

You mine resources in the caves, the ones you've been sent there for of course, as well as nitra and gold. Nitra is basically ammo: you trade it for resupplies. Gold is straight up CASH, paid out at the end of the mission: the more you get, the better you do, so mine that gold. There are other, rarified resources in the caves: plants and minerals which DO NOT give you an immediate pay out, but act as crafting or brewing mats for upgrades and beers. What's a dwarf without a good brew? Once you've hit your primary objective (each mission comes with a primary and optional secondary objective. You can skip the secondary, but there's a NICE payout bonus if you hit it and live.) tag the recall button, and get ready to RUN! Deep Rock Galactic will drop in an escape pod for you, but it sticks around for EXACTLY five minutes, and it's leaving with or without you. You can either pray you remember the path you took, or follow the M.U.L.E.S ass as close as you can, since it never gets lost and NEVER gets left behind.

This game is FUN. The rounds are generally short, the longest one I've played was just over half an hour, the classes are different enough that you seriously consider changing roles depending on the mission, but similar enough that switching between them isn't a hassle or drag. Everyone has two weapons, a grenade, two support tools, and a functionally bottomless bag of flares. With the help of bosco: I've yet to hit a mission which isn't accomplishable in single play; but it's made for multi and soooo much better with friends.

Anyone else playing this little gem?

 

[Cradok]

ROCK AND STONE, EVERYONE!

 

[wonko the sane?]

Ha, so a swarm of loot bugs descended onto a lightning stone. Took me four trips to clean up all the nitra and gold. Literally tripled my payout for the mission.

 

[wonko the sane?]

Alright, so if you've played enough DRG, you know about escort missions. I was a little disturbed about the outcome of doretta, given how... over engineered deep rocks bots usually are. Bosco is a little flying tank, and I've literally seen Molly plonk her arse down on a lava geyser and not so much as twitch.

Doretta is a straight up kamikaze. In my second most recent mission: I discovered that her head LITERALLY flies off when the heart stone is opened. I actually had a little tear in my eye when I found it, just... lying on the ground.

This LAST mission, however, I discovered that you could PICK UP HER HEAD! And it was still working! Oh hell no, doretta is not getting left behind. Waddled it all the way back to the drop pod.

Then she shows up on the victory screen! Awesome!

 

[Cradok]

Yeah, originally the head just exploded, and that was it, but people kept asking to be able to save her in some way, so they added the head. The DRG devs are pretty awesome, they do streams every week and they're so fun to watch.

 

[Pocket]

I've been watching gameplay videos of this game on and off for the past year or more, and tried it out during a free weekend. It sounds like it could easily be my new TF2 if I got it, but also it seems like the kind of game you need mic chat for, and that's not really feasible for me most of the time.

 

[Cradok]

It helps, but you don't actually need it. The Laser Pointer is generally all you need for 90% of interactions, as long as the player is even vaguely aware of what their classes role is, and chat is fine for the rest. You occasionally get people who don't ever look at the chat or who don't do what they're supposed to do, but honestly in 300 hours of playing, I've rarely come across actual assholes.

 

[wonko the sane?]

From what I've seen and heard: all you need is the laser pointer and the salute. ROCK AND STONE!

 

[Pocket]

Played a bit during the Free Weekend on the lappy, since it's ironically the most competent gaming system I have left at the moment (and unlike the big desktop monitor, it won't look terrible on the little screen if I run it at a sub-HD resolution to save frames). I learned a few things:

(1) If I get separated and really can't find my teammates, I can just call for the M.U.L.E. and then ask one of them to call for it when it arrives, as it will lead me back to them.

(2) There's a set of holographic soccer goals and a ball in an out-of-the-way room down the ladder in the lobby. A rando and I kicked it around a bit while we were waiting for a third to join.

(3) The pipeline missions are particularly tough to play without voice chat, since you basically just have to wait for one person to decide where the pipes should go and hope you can guess what you need to do to help them get where they're going.

Oh, and I forgot to mention before—as a Commodre 64 owner, I like that the walking robot minecart is called the M.U.L.E., a nod to the old sci-fi management sim of the same name even if it probably doesn't stand for the same thing (I don't think they've ever said what it stands for here?)