Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor Preview - Diving Into a New Genre

Vampire Survivors is the reigning king of the Auto Shooter genre and it has inspired a thousand imitators. We've now reached the pivotal moment where an established IP is nudging its way into this space: say hello to Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor.

Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor is the second game in the Deep Rock Galactic universe. While the original game is a first-person extraction shooter of sorts, this spinoff is an "Auto Shooter" like Vampire Survivors. As an avid fan of Vampire Survivors, I was excited to see if Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor could replicate its success.

Automatically Fun

Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor has laid out a decent framework for a robust Auto Shooter. Each run (called a "dive") has you exploring 5 stages of a particular biome with a miniboss fight at the end of each stage and a boss fight at the end of each run. Along the way, you'll collect resources and upgrade your weapons.

Initially, you can only choose one class (the Scout) and explore one biome (the Crystalline Caverns). Each subsequent dive puts you one step closer to unlocking something new, whether it's a new Weapon, a new Class, or a new Biome.

Each weapon in Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor feels like it captures the spirit of its counterpart in Deep Rock Galactic while also exhibiting entirely different mechanics.

As with other games in the Auto Shooter genre, Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor also has permanent upgrades that you can purchase between runs. The crafting materials for Deep Rock Galactic are used for these instead of buying beers and crafting Overclocks for your guns.

The one thing that this spinoff absolutely nailed is the feeling of being overwhelmed by a horde of alien bugs. You can certainly get into some hairy situations where you're fending off dozens of critters in the O.G. Deep Rock Galactic and this spinoff game does not disappoint in that regard.

You won't have to spend hours and hours digging underground, either — I've never had a run last longer than 25 minutes, even when things go badly wrong. That's certainly an improvement over Deep Rock Galactic where a tough mission could easily last an hour or more.

Shifting Genres

Naturally, the developers at Funday Games had quite the challenge with Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor; they had to adapt a first-person shooter to a totally different genre. More critically, they had to adapt the weapons from something that you can deliberately aim to something that behaves altogether differently.

By and large, Funday Games has succeeded. Each weapon in Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor feels like it captures the spirit of its counterpart in Deep Rock Galactic while also exhibiting entirely different mechanics.

Take the M1000 Classic, for example. In Deep Rock Galactic, it is a high-powered, single-shot rifle that excels at taking out single targets with precision. In its Auto Shooter counterpart, it automatically targets the enemy with the highest health and hits them for a ton of damage.

Mining is just as much of a part of this game as its forebear, too. Simply walking up against a wall will cause your dwarf to automatically mine the wall or any resources. You can even chop up the ubiquitous Loot Bugs that are filled with delicious Gold and Nitra.

Even the Supply Pods make an appearance. Instead of ammo, Supply Pods will give you "artifacts" — pieces of equipment that can buff you similar to the Passive Items of Vampire Survivors. You can even drop them on enemies for massive damage, just like the first game.

Not Digging As Deep

I've got a lot of good things to say about Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor, but that's not to say there aren't some problems, too. It's missing some of the versatility of Deep Rock Galactic, and it's also lacking some of the quality-of-life features that make Vampire Survivors' gameplay so well-balanced.

For example, each biome in Deep Rock Galactic has unique resources and enemies that can only be found in that biome. Although each biome in Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor has unique hazards, the crafting resources and enemies are essentially the same across the board.

I can see Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor being the first Auto Shooter that can stand on its own in the shadow of Vampire Survivors.

There's also no real variety in the missions themselves. Every dive has you killing an Elite enemy at the end of a level and a Dreadnought at the end of a dive. There are not yet missions to collect alien eggs or set up a liquid Morkite drilling rig; the gameplay can feel a bit stale after a while.

As for its Auto Shooter mechanics, there are some conveniences of Vampire Survivors that I found myself sorely missing. The ability to Reroll most things is welcome, but the lack of a Banish feature is quite painful — the more weapons you unlock, the harder it is to get an ideal build.

Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor Preview | Final Thoughts

The big question is this: is Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor worth your time and money? That depends on whether or not you're a fan of Deep Rock Galactic or Vampire Survivors.

Fans of Deep Rock Galactic can experience new ways to mine rock and stone with their favorite dwarves and wacky weapons. Fans of Vampire Survivors, on the other hand, would get to see a somewhat different take on the Auto Shooter genre that is made much better than some of the knock-offs out there.

And finally, those of you who have never played either game will find something delightful and new to play in its own right. Though it's still quite early in its Early Access life, I can see Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor being the first Auto Shooter that can stand on its own in the shadow of Vampire Survivors.

As always, its success will depend on how the developers manage to flesh it out in the coming months and years. Funday Games has laid a solid foundation, and now they'll have the tough task of building something magnificent upon it.

Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor was previewed on PC with a key provided by Ghost Ship Publishing over the course of 51 hours of gameplay before the Early Access Launch. All screenshots were taken by the previewer during gameplay.