I’m a sucker for Vampire Survivors style casual games, and since I’m already a huge fan of Deep Rock Galactic, a game that meshes those two things up sounded like a great combination. And it is. Like peanut butter and chocolate, Deep Rock Galactic Survivor is a great blend of two of my favorite things.
Sometimes when you mash up two great things like this, they don't turn out well. Deep Rock Galactic Survivor ends up being an exception. It adds just enough variation on the Vampire Survivor formula to keep it interesting.
When you drop into each stage your task is to survive until the next, or until you finish all five stages by killing the dreadnought. Each stage has secondary objectives to complete, like collecting morkite or apoca blooms. There is also gold and nitra to collect on each stage, both of which you can spend on upgrades between stages. Gold is a little more useful, though, as it allows you to reroll upgrades when you level up, and you can spend it to replenish health between levels.
There are four different classes to choose from. Each of these classes has 3 subclasses you can eventually unlock. Each of these subclasses has different strengths and weaknesses. You can play as the scout, the gunner, and the engineer. Each of which unlock as you play the game.
The classes aren’t exactly how you remember them. Not only do some characters share weapons between them, characters like the driller do stuff their Deep Rock Galactic equivalent can’t do like place turrets.
Sadly, some of what makes Deep Rock Galactic great is lost in Survivor. Most notably the traversal methods aren’t even attempted here, except for the driller’s drill arms. I would have loved to see the Scout get a grapple to get him away quickly–or maybe even the ability to jump over obstacles. Similarly, the Engineer could have had a platform gun that blocked enemies or something similar. Instead we get nothing at all.
Unlike a lot of other Vampire Survivor style games, Deep Rock Galactic Survivor has a bit more to do than just survive. Each level has a side objective–like mining morkite or collecting Apoca blooms. These are required to finish the level, however. All you need to do is survive and kill bugs–which goes hand-in-hand for Survivor as there are never ending waves of bugs coming for you.
You have to mine gold and nitra for upgrades during your run–but there are also other minerals like Jadiz, Enor Pearls, etc. that you use to upgrade your character between runs. It’s a lot like how Deep Rock Galactic handles things. I mean, that’s okay, it’s just notably different.
Lore-wise, it hilariously adds more questions than answers. Which is totally apropos for Deep Rock Galactic, which left us with lingering questions about mini-mules, alien eggs, error cubes and Karl himself. I’m honestly just okay with how inconsistent everything is, because there’s some consistency in that.
For an Early Access game Deep Rock Galactic Survivor is pretty well polished. I’ve already spent about a dozen hours and I’m losing time on other games I should be playing because I’m obsessed. Developer Funday Games plans to keep Survivor in Early Access for 6-12 months–and I can’t wait to see how it improves. Rock and stone!
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