Deep Rock Galactic is the best game for beer!

Multiplayer games have one significant problem: they involve the player, but somewhat burden the player with perpetual competition. Just like in sports, in multiplayer you can lose your form if you stop playing. And some games, let's not point the finger, in general, push to virtual "doping", that is donation. The role of the unifier between multiplayer involvement and unobtrusive single-player games for a long time brilliantly performed by games with a cooperative mode.

There aren't many truly quality co-op projects. And even those few that once set the bar, in the aftermath of this bar could not hold. It's worth remembering the sad experience of PayDay 2. The best heist simulator has turned into a banal pile of unbalanced mechanics, a pile of garbage content. And all this "miracle" was badly slowed down.

Space Gimli

The first thing that gives Deep Rock Galactic its charm is the setting. There's too much cliched cyberpunk and corny post-apocalypse these days. What about dwarf miners mining fossils in galaxies far, far away? What if it was all done in colorful stylized low-polygon graphics, with some eighties space ambient in the background?

Space dwarfs in intergalactic mines - it already sounds absurd and funny, but the developers did not stop there. Deep Rock Galactic skillfully juggles with stereotypes, and sometimes even banter itself. The dwarfs here are the most collective image: they always drink beer, frown until they drink beer, almost pray to their beards and are very proud of their mining profession.

But for all that, dwarves sometimes behave like children: they complain, they whine, and if one of the dwarves gets wounded in battle, he will immediately squeal something a la, "Help! I can't feel my beard!".

Miner - a profession of the future

From the gameplay point of view, Deep Rock Galactic skillfully takes advantage of the achievements of "colleagues in the shop" and learns from their mistakes. The entire gameplay is divided into two parts: a walk through the hub and procedurally generated levels with randomly dropped conditions. On biomes you may encounter both competitors and ghosts. Sometimes reduced gravity and limited air supplies come into play. Each mission is something different from the previous one, which raises the replayability in times.

There is no lobby in the game, this role is taken over by the same hub, where the player chooses his dwarf class, pumps passive and active skills, picks up equipment, and sometimes just doing crap: getting drunk in the local bar, dancing at the jukebox, binged in a mini game of basketball or raging, kicking drums with his feet.

Often the player decides which items and weapons he needs more. In the screenshot above, I noted 3 items of equipment. The red arrow marks the passive perks a la vampirism in close combat, roomy pouches, etc. Yellow arrow marked things available only to a particular class, and the blue arrow marks the setting of the armor. Weapons stand out, as I marked them with the green arrow.

Increase the rate of fire to the detriment of the damage; pierce the shields, but take less ammo; deal critical damage to the heads, but reduce the magazine capacity - that's what Deep Rock Galactic is about. Not that this game has a pronounced emphasis on building builds, such as in Deed Cells, but a couple dozen hours to rack your brains over the build. There aren't too many objectively weak items, so you won't have to play with the same weapon for hundreds of hours. Even one of the four classes reveals its full potential not immediately. It's not the improvement that decides much, but the player's knowledge and direct hands. In terms of leveling up and its delivery Deep Rock Galactic somewhat reminiscent of the Rogue-lite games, but without the permanent death mechanics.

It is noteworthy that almost all the items in the game can be obtained only by hard work: if you want to pump one of the dwarfs - play on it and look into his role; if you want to dress up a dwarf - gather enough resources or forge the desired item in a special smithy; if you want to customize pickaxe - find a hidden stash on the map.

No lootboxes, season passes, and donation in general you will not see in Deep Rock Galactic, you have to produce everything yourself.

Before the mission you will be offered a choice of 4 classes:

Stormtrooper - this dwarf specializes in area damage and point killing of particularly fat enemies. In the team he acts as a tank and the main combat unit.

Engineer - mainly uses shotguns and sets up turrets, and shoots platforms to get to hard-to-reach places or to create an improvised trench. In a team he plays the role of fire support.

Scout is a fast and nimble dwarf with a cat hook. The weakest class in the battle, but thanks to his abilities he avoids open encounters with crowds of enemies and bosses. With a scout on the team it's much easier to navigate the map. Yes, and only the scout can get to some places on the map.

The Driller - and the sweetest thing for dessert... The Driller digs passages and creates new loopholes for the team. At the end of each mission, players must reach the evacuation point within a certain time frame to win, and often the evacuation point is too far away, so without a savvy driller it will be much harder to finish the lion's share of missions. The Driller is armed with either a flamethrower or a freezer cannon, and carries a C4. In combat, the driller has tremendous stopping power, but only in capable hands.

But simply listing the classes and their abilities would not convey the basic idea of Deep Rock Galactic - complete role synergy. Unlike many other cooperative shooters, the main emphasis in Deep Rock Galactic is on teamwork. In one to complete the task is already a bit difficult on medium difficulty. None of the classes has a clear advantage over the others and is, in fact, a puzzle in a puzzle: the mission without a stormtrooper turns into a chase from mobs; in the moments of defense of the plot object without an engineer can not cope; without a scout you can not get rare minerals, and the map will be too dark; and without a driller each mission will stretch twice as long and not sure that will succeed, even if all conditions will be met.

Bugs live in the ground. Logically

The whole point of Deep Rock Galactic is not to clear the locations from the enemies, but to get the necessary ores. There are many types of minerals in the game, and each of them will come in handy sooner or later. The local market helps with resource management, but, as in life, the exchange rate is unprofitable.

Beetles, the local aggressive fauna, interfere with dorfs' ability to gather resources and escape. The variety of enemies is astounding: more than 40 kinds of crawling, flying, living in the ground, and sometimes exotic creatures.

And trust me, bugs in Deep Rock Group will give you nightmares. On high difficulty levels they crawl out of every crevice, some even from under the ground. There are even ghost bugs the size of two-story houses...the biggest beetles you'll ever encounter: flying bugs spawning flying electric bugs, kamikaze bugs, armored bugs, slime-firing bugs, sandworms, armor worms, and even bugs made of pure gold - here the authors' inflamed imagination has created an entire beastiary of bugs!

Some beetles seem to be specially created to piss off the players. They do not pose a threat, but cause a lot of inconvenience. But there's also a "good" beetle that's harmless, very cute, and makes funny noises. The cute bug can even be petted...or killed in cold blood for a handful of resources.

Where to dig?

But most of all, Deep Rock Galactic's approach to the diversity of locations and their procedural generation is a great asset. There are eight biomes in the game, and each of them makes its own adjustments to the gameplay. For example: in a volcanic biome, jets of fire erupt from the ground, and in a toxic biome, radioactive crystals stick out of the rock, glowing in the dark.

Biomes differ not only in conditions and enemy populations, but also in resources. You can not exclude the hated biome, you have to look there from time to time, and the global map will not ask you. Every day the set of available missions changes.

But as if this variety wasn't enough, there are also difficulty modifiers. There are harmless modifiers with low gravity - the characters jump high and get almost no damage when falling. And there are frankly mocking ones, about which I don't even want to remember...

Over time, the game and appeared "Deep Dives", but especially to focus on them there is no point - it's two or three glued mission.

In addition to the variety of biomes, if the variety within these same biomes. The map can be anything you want, so Deep Rock Galactic is a living hell for people with spatial cretinism. There is a mini-map, but even in it it is sometimes difficult to understand.

Add to this the fact that there is almost no lighting on the maps, the only sources of light are barely flickering in the half-dark weather phenomena and chemical light sticks carried by dwarves. The scout is saved from the eternal darkness - he has a light cannon, and I would not advise neglecting it. Getting lost on the map in Deep Rock Galactic is very easy. The only way to win on high difficulty is to work together.

Is Deep Rock Galactic worth buying?

Deep Rock Galactic is definitely worth the money and your time. This game is not a cash cow of the developers, but a real people's product. The balance, the replayability, the leveling system, the graphics, and even for the amateur. All done here on the conscience. The only thing that can spoil your impression of the game is the lack of friends. In Deep Rock Galastisya would be strongly recommended to play with a friend or at least get a team directly in the game, for teamwork and straight hands are crucial here.