Though the survivors genre has only really been in existence for the last six years or so (if you start the count from Vampire Survivors stint in PC early access, anyway), it already feels like that there has been an inordinate amount of survivors-like efforts and pretenders in the intervening years. The latest of these is Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor, a survivors-like spin-off of Deep Rock Galactic, a hugely popular co-operative extraction shooter that has millions of fans the world over across multiple platforms including PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5.
Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor PS5 Review
Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor is, first and foremost, a whole lotta fun, not least because developer Funday Games understands how to deftly meld the extraction shooter elements of its core namesake with survivors-like game mechanics in a way that feels fresh and largely irresistible.
For the unfamiliar, the Deep Rock Galactic setting is all about a corporation of workmanlike dwarves who armed with massive drilling machines, gadgets and a ridiculous amount of firearms, must plumb the depths of the planet Hoxxes in search for precious minerals, all the while fighting off the thousands of really angry local bugs that have taken up residence. Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor inherits the setting in its entirety with some caveats in that it ejects the first-person perspective in favour of an overhead view, ditches co-op play in favour of a solo only adventure and infuses the whole thing with a bevy of survivors-like mechanics.
The premise is so beautifully simple. Though there are additional objectives such escort missions, bug hunts and things of that nature, the core goals are always to mine as much nitra ore and gold as you can, extract as many rare materials as possible, stay alive, kill any bosses and extract before your driller leaves and you’re left down in the depths of Hoxxes for good.
Naturally, where the survivors-like mechanics come in is in how roguelite design methodology is employed and again, it’s pretty straightforward stuff. Between you and your goal of nabbing a bunch of shiny ore and getting out of dodge are a swarm of bugs that when killed drop precious (and very shiny, I have to say) XP cubes that when collected provide you with a choice of upgrades to take upon which you can let your play preference decide. It’s pretty much the backbone of any survivors-like title and it’s of little surprise that such a system is in play here.
At the end of each phase in a given run and assuming you’ve extracted in time, gold and nitra can be used to buy in-run upgrades such as extra health, improved pickup radius, extra damage, weapon buffs and things of that nature, while you can also opt to use a chunk of gold to heal your health. So that’s your in-run progression sorted and like any survivors-like offering worth its salt, Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor has nailed the knack of getting you to come back for more and scoop up as much of that precious ore as possible in order to max out your progression in a given run.
Then you’ve got the persistent progression mechanics and it’s here that Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor reveals itself to be impressively layered. Special minerals and rare plants can be mined and if you’re successful in a given playthrough, can be traded for permanent increases and buffs in things such as health, armour, XP gain and so on. Meanwhile, killing swarm boss enemies, special elite foes and completing daily and weekly tasks also provide a raft of various permanent gear that can be equipped, which, you guessed it, provide a range of stat boosts and specialisations that can dovetail with your chosen playstyle.
Finally, completing runs, special objectives and other tasks meanwhile increases your permanent character level which when it hits certain thresholds, unlocks additional classes such as the gunner, engineer and driller, while playing as any of those classes persistently will unlock sub-classes which provide focused bonuses in different stat areas. Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor then is, mechanically at least, ticking all of the survivors-like 101 bingo boxes, but where it really starts to pull away from the crowded competition is in the connective tissue that the studio has in place between those traditional mechanics.
Each run essentially runs on a schedule whereby you’ll get portions of time to wander the map, hoover up as much ore and rare materials as you can and then start running when the swarm counter is hit, causing a raft of enemies to converge your location pretty darn quickly. This being a Deep Rock Galactic game however, you always have somewhere to run in that you can not only borrow your way through the various rocks and stone in order to get to safety, but so too can this slow down your enemies too, essentially allowing you to carve a path out of danger rather than having to confront the swarm directly.
Another part of the scheduled run is the supply drop which happens once every level, but can only occur if you have activated the supply beacon in an area where there are no obstructions. Hilariously, when the supply beacon drops it basically murders anything it lands on pretty much instantly, and so I frequently get a great kick out of triggering a swarm, leading it all to the supply beacon, getting totally surrounded, activate the beacon and then just hoover up all of the absolute tsunami of XP cubes which burst forth after the supply pod makes its violent landing.
Of course this being a survivors-like effort, this is a reverse bullet-hell shooter as well, meaning that your chosen dwarf will auto attack while you take care of the business of running around the map like a madman hunting for precious ore and loot. This also means that there is a substantial arsenal available to you too, ranging from boomerangs, to mini-guns, to high-powered rifles, four-way pistols, grenades and so much more. Oh and to top it all off, all of these weapons can be upgraded within each run with additional damage and element effects such as cold, electricity and fire, too.
Something else which Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor also does which I really like is the emphasis placed on interactivity within its various levels. Each set of levels tends to have its own special hazards, and while most of them are threatening to you, such as thorny red vines and lava pits, others can be used to your advantage. In one level for example, there are these resonant crystals that you can ring and upon doing so, trigger massive icicles to fall from the ceiling and devastate the enemy.
If I had to choose one aspect of Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor which makes it stand out from its genre brethren, it would have to be the visuals. Unlike Vampire Survivors and even more recent titles such as Soulstone Survivors, Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor has so many highly detailed character models on screen at any single time in tandem with showers of fire, electricity, XP cubes exploding everywhere and more, that even the mighty PS5 Pro sometimes struggles to keep a stable 60 frames per second when the screen gets absolutely packed with activity.
Annoyingly on the technical front, the current version of Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor also has some fairly pronounced screen tearing which though not too bad overall, can prove to be distracting, especially in an age of VRR compatible displays. I’ve also run into some odd bugs (pun intended) where enemies can find themselves lurking in the void outside of the area of the map you are able to traverse, and special loot bugs – which you can kill for a quick fix of nitra and gold – can find themselves spawned on top of each other, but when you kill them you’re only given the loot for one. Hopefully a patch is in the offing to resolve these technical maladies.
At just over ten bucks (and that’s not a sale price), Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor also represents a crazy return on your investment in terms of longevity and the sheer amount of content it offers. Easily bringing more than a hundred hours of gameplay to the table thanks to its seemingly bottomless progression systems and generous spread of levels and mission types, this is a game which through its mastery of combining classic Deep Rock Galactic extraction gameplay and survivors-like mechanics, will keep you obsessively coming back for more.
Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor is easily one of the most enjoyably polished and compelling survivors-like titles out there, and though its technical shortcomings do grate on occasion, Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor will nonetheless give you an outsized amount of bang for your buck and keep you glued to its bug-destroying, mineral-mining mayhem in ways that will prove hazardous to your social calendar.
Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor is out now on PS5.
Review code kindly provided by PR.