Deep Rock Galactic Survivor Review: Underground Excess

Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor is less sequel, more spinoff to the original 2018 FPS, and it boldly bursts into a new genre: the "bullet heaven," also known as "walk around while your guy automatically attacks." In a gameplay style that seems be getting increasingly saturated day-by-day, does Deep Rock Galactic's foray do enough to separate itself from the pack? 

A Survivors Classic...

As you might expect, Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor plays much like the 2022 smash hit Vampire Survivors. You walk around, gain experience, level up, and use those levels to upgrade and acquire new weapons. Enemies swarm around you and with some exceptions for projectile-spitting foes, about the only way to take damage from them is to be overwhelmed by sheer numbers.

The sheer numbers show in the scale of content, too. 300 achievements, for one, as well as a bevy a missions with different mutators and twists to take on. It's a completionist's dream, or nightmare, depending on how you look at it.

You start with one weapon and gain your next three at set levels. This means that you're definitely going to want to be comfortable with your starting weapon, as it and one other random draw may be all you have for a while.

The formula of combat is pretty familiar for this, with weapons offering various upgrades as you level up. The weapon upgrades differ a little bit, thanks to the addition of milestones called "overclocks" at certain levels.

Overclocks give significant boosts to power in many different ways, from something as simple as a damage boost, to an overclock for a grenade that splits into three weaker versions of the same grenade. These upgrades change the already interesting weapons variety, giving even runs with similar weapons the possibility to feel different.

As for traversal, each stage consists of 5 sort of mini-stages, each culminating in a boss fight. After the boss fight, you'll have 30 seconds to get to a drop pod and escape to the next layer, or risk being abandoned.

This mechanic in particular gives a lot of fun risk-reward management, as you debate if it's worth going back for that sweet XP pile before getting to the drop pod. It also contributes to the general fast pace of the game, leading half-hour runs to feel like they're done in the blink of an eye. "One more run" was rarely just one.

...With Some Miner Changes

Speaking of risk-reward, the biggest innovation that Deep Rock Galactic's survivor spin brings is the addition of, of course, mining. In addition to using your weapons to fight off enemies to gain experience points and level up, you can dig for materials, in particular Gold and Nitra, that help you buy upgrades between stages.

The addition of mining is a very welcome one, and gives a lot of incentive to thoroughly explore each layer as you visit it. With how brisk the game moves you along, it's rare that you'll get to see everything in a stage, so it's up to you to decide what's worth mining for, and what's better off ignored.

I found this to be a great addition to the known formula. It's a good compromise, giving me more to do, while also keeping attacks automatic like the titans of the bullet heaven genre.

In addition to mining for Gold and Nitra, you'll be tasked with secondary objectives, tasking you with finding anything from flowers to mushrooms. Collecting your quota of these will reward you with a healthy chunk of Gold and XP, adding a scavenger hunt element to your runs.

I enjoyed hunting for these materials, but wish they also served more of a purpose. Unlike Gold and Nitra, which help purchase upgrades for your run, and other minerals, which unlock permanent upgrades from the main menu, materials like Morokite that secondary objectives request seemingly disappear into the ether after you leave the layer.

These secondary objectives seem like they could have been even better if they helped steer me towards materials that also worked towards permanent unlocks, but as it stands, are just fun temporary distractions for each stage.

Grinding My Gears

The headline addition that arrived in the 1.0 version of Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor is the gear system. Gear is equipment that enemies have a chance to drop throughout your run, which you can then equip to your characters before a run, offering stat buffs in a variety of areas.

Despite its headline billing, the gear was one of the more disappointing aspects. The random enemy drops combined with the miniscule benefits led me to mostly just use the handy automatic "smart equip" feature and just go back into another run instead.

This meta progression was the overall weakest part of my time with Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor. Unlocks felt like they came at a slow pace, and first runs with each class especially felt almost scripted with how few options you were able to choose from for your arsenal.

And as for those aforementioned minerals, they serve mostly to gate off certain upgrades. For instance, you'll need pearls to increase your XP gain, but a different kind of gem to increase your critical hit rate.

While I understand the whole system is built to encourage mining, it feels like the whole thing would've been a lot more streamlined if I could've sold the treasure and bought any upgrade with the primary currency, instead of sorting through 7 currencies to see what upgrades I can maybe afford.

Despite my minor meta progression and unlock complaints, it's undeniable that the moment-to-moment gameplay of Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor is an excellent distillation of the bullet heaven genre.

It's come a long way since early access, and the mining and small-stage format gives it a breakneck pace that makes that intoxicating "one more run" promise that the best of this genre should tempt you with.

Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor was reviewed on PC and Steam Deck using a copy provided by the publisher over the course of 10 hours of gameplay - all screenshots were taken during the process of review.