All content in this post are screenshots taken from my own personal playthrus of Deep Rock Galactic. Banner edited by myself. Gifs sourced.
Deep Rock Galactic Rocks!
The cold stone of Hoxxes murmurs with energy, skittering and chattering can be heard in the tunnels and caverns around you. You're dwarven brethren all keep chanting "rock and stone" or repeatedly calling out a lootbug, slug, or whatever shicanery. Perhaps they are mining the morkite you came to collect, it is more likely that they are not. All seems well, until a large blip is headed for you on the radar. The fight for survival begins. Welcome to Deep Rock miner.
Deep Rock galactic is a mining AND extraction game with a fully destructible environment and 3 distinct classes each with their own pros/cons. It's a blast to play and the gameplay loop is infinitely replayable (will get into that in the next section). It offers mission variety, map variety, and class/weapon variety. You can play this game for hours and hours and still have a great time from hour 1 to 1001, this title has fast become one of my favorite extraction games as of late.
Extraction, in all the senses: The Gameplay Loop
Essentially most missions have a variety of objectives that need completing before returning to the "drop pod" (extraction point) and escaping with the loot acquired. These objectives range from "mine for resources" to "defend the point against attacks" to a variety of bosses and other encounterable "side missions" available in EVERY mission. Usually you have to put resources in "the M.U.L.E." or another deposit site and once you have extracted "enough" you and your colleagues can call for the extraction pod.
Missions are divided into 5 Hazard levels. The first 4 being acquirable by completing the previous hazard levels. Hazard 5 requires an account level of 10 and to complete a "quest" to unlock (this is beccause hazard 5 is more difficult and requires understanding "etiquette" for in game resources more than the previous hazard levels).
There are also "Deep Dive" missions which are essentially multiple missions chained together as you go deeper and deeper into Hoxxes and take quite a bit of time to complete (Think raids in WoW etc.). These missions are a lot of fun but a bit time consuming. All missions have enough random encounters and random generation to be infinitely replayable, honestly quite an addictive and satisfying gameplay loop.
Hoxxes: An Asteroid with many biomes
Hoxxes is split up into 10 biomes, each with their own challenges and aesthetics. All of them are fun to play on and beutiful in their own right.
Dense Biozone: This biome is more "jungle-like" than the others. There are various flora that you can destroy or manipulate to get about your surroundings and unique (harmless) fauna that add to the ambience. Different Glyphids spawn here creating a sort of "unique hazard" in their spawn frequence (more swarmers and birthers etc.)
Magma Core: This terrain has more of a "volcanic" feel and has hazards like lava flows and eruptions. Also exploder Glyphids are more prominent in this zone. The sandstone and magma are beautiful to stare at and this actually has fast become one of my favorite zones. Very understated and underappreciated
Glacial Strata: This zone is one of my all time favorites. It has ice your character slides on, all gyhpids are a unique "ice" variant and spew ice instead of poison etc. and have a wooly exterior. The crystalline structures are fun to look at. This zone rocks (but is difficult and actually doesn't contain many rocks).
Azure Weald: This is probably what most would consider "the basic zone" it has a mix of elements. Crystals, fauna, flora, and the occasional odd relic location. It's still very fun to explore but has the least "flavor" out of all the zones in my opinion. But that's sort of it's purpose, it's a baseline of "The base Deep Rock Experience" and it certainly delivers.
Fungal Bog: This zone has a lot of green flourescent aesthetics, poisonous flora and fauna, and dense vegetation. This zone is not a particularly difficult one, but has more flying enemies than the other zones on average.
Hollow Borrow: Is a difficult to traverse area with numerous sentient spiked tentacles that attack the player at every turn. The appearance of this zone is almost "treetrunk" like and something rather unique to the asteroid.
Radioactive Exclusion Zone: Offers the player a lot of danger and intrigue. The units here are more deadly and the environment itself is also radioactive. While not as difficult as the magma core, this is still one of the tougher zones to get through.
The Salt Pits are defined by their massive salt deposits and reddish stone. There is nothing particularly unique or exciting about this biome aside from it's different aesthetic variation. No new enemies etc.
The Sandblasted Corridor is a unique biome with a beautiful sandstone canyon aesthetic. The dangers present are the wind that is blowing throughout the canyon and the dust that makes it difficult to see. Both can be very problematic for platforming or firing upon enemies. Tread with care
The Crystal Caverns are VERY pretty and one of the first biomes released for the game. That said that's about all there is to it. Standard biome with standard enemies and encounters, however aesthetically pleasant.
The Setting is FULLY DESTRUCTIBLE
Much like our own world we live in, this enviroment is fully destructible if you try to destroy it. In fact it's one of the key appeals to the game itself. You can dig, blow up, mine, and destroy every single block of matter in every map. No matter what. Which in an extraction shooter/ mining game is exceedingly enjoyable to do exactly that. The more advanced strategies in the game in fact rely around digging out "arenas" before bossfights and key in game events so you have an easier time dealing with the incoming horde etc. You are meant to lean into this aspect of the game to create the gameplay experience you desire. They implement it beautifully and it's quite refreshing to see.
Talking Tidbits: Bells, Beers, and Whistles
There are plenty of aesthetics, beers, pickaxe cosmetics, and more bells and whistles to the game. Some of these cost money to achieve (DLC cosmetics), but nothing here actually effects gameplay. It's mostly just a way to support the devs and give them something to keep developing. The game has come a long way from when I first played it. Excellent pve shooter, top notch.
TLDR: How many stars is it damn it?
This game is damn good, real damn good. I'd give it a 4 or 5 out of 5. It has a full blown modding community, Endlessly replayable levels, a satisfying gameplay loop and atmosphere, unique and customizable classes, and it's community is active and engaging. It's been a blast playing this game and streaming it. I would wholeheartedly recommend this title to anyone who's itch is scratched by any one of the genres this game takes part in (mining, extraction shooter, team based pve survival, destructible sandboxes, modding). I intend to 100 percent cheev this game as most of the achievements will happen from merely playing hazard 5 runs ad nauseum (which was the plan anyway). Cheers everyone and thanks for reading this review. You all rock and what make it worth writing.