We’re living in a golden age of co op games. After more than a decade of believing it was only grammatically correct to put the word “competitive” in front of “Multiplayer”, we’ve hit an evolution of peak gaming- chilling with your friends and being silly guys together.
Deep Rock Galactic is one of these- a fun little cooperative jaunt that has you filling the hairy boots of a bunch of space dwarves as you fight bugs and mine for precious ore. While it may appear more rigid at first- having a class system and objectives, the game literally just throws you in to the caves and says “Best of luck!” before unleashing you on a desolate cavern with your friends.
The Rock Stones With You
At first, you may question how much you really need a squad. I mean, each class is pretty self sufficient, being able to light up entire rooms or traverse gaps with ziplines or traverse through dirt itself with giant drills. Any single one of the game’s classes can easily meet mining quotas on their own, and your drone partner even makes sure you have someone to help you when you’re down, a role even real life friends occasionally fail at.
But suddenly, when you’re doing the missions with more challenging objectives, you realize the value of welcoming other people into your life. My elaborate stone staircase just to get to a fossil on the roof is pointless when our Gunner simply builds a zipline to take us straight there. Heck, I don’t even have to be the one making those risky climbs when there’s a scout there, much better suited to elaborate traversal than a lowly Driller.
Even in combat, there’s a fun to being in a call with your friends while you play Deep Rock Galactic. Simply extracting Bug Eggs will alert a small horde to you, and there’s nothing quite like the panicked screaming of your friend who’d just climbed out of a tunnel only to suddenly be overrun by bugs like they were food that’s been left out. You might even be there rare focused person in the group, turning four chaotic dwarves into a finely-tuned machine for blowing up bugs, complete with deployable barriers, flamethrowers and boomsticks.
Experiencing Solitude In Deep Rock Galactic
Like I said earlier, that doesn’t mean you necessarily can’t play Deep Rock Galactic alone. The game feels completely different on a solo run, as you explore these massive alien caves with nothing but a cute robot companion and your MULE on your side. It’s a genuinely charming game, and the difficulty is enough of a draw knowing that you’re basically alone fighting any threats you may dig up.
That being said, there is a special charm to playing the game in co-op. Even outside of missions, you’re free to wander your base together, taking part in minigames and dancing at the bar to the chagrin of your supervisor. Dwarf was never meant to Rock and Stone alone, and just a few rounds of Deep Rock Galactic is sure to have you change your tone. With the physical release of Deep Rock Galactic, you can even start gifting your friends the game, so they can jump in for space digger adventures together on the PS5.
