Vampire Survivors clones with decent graphics and relatively big budgets have been flooding in. Archons, Achilles: Survivor, Jotunnslayer: Hordes of Hel and now Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor, which has finally left Steam Early Access. Let's see what we have here.
| Game | Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor |
| Genre | vampire-like |
| Platforms | Windows, Xbox Series X|S |
| Languages | English, Ukrainian |
| Developer | Funday Games |
| Publisher | Ghost Ship Publishing |
| Link | fundaygames.dk |
I admit, I'm not a fan of Deep Rock Galactic, or of cooperative PvE shooters with Extraction elements in general, but I've watched the phenomenal start and development of this game, which brought the small Danish studio Ghost Ship Games to the big league. Since its release in Steam Early Access in 2018, Deep Rock Galactic has sold about 12 million copies (the last official report for January 2024 is 8 million) and still maintains an online population of 5-15 thousand players. However, you don't have to be a fan of the original game to enjoy Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor, because it is Survivor first and Deep Rock Galactic second.
But yes, Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor is a direct spinoff of Deep Rock Galactic, taking place on the same planet Goxes, which is rich in minerals and also has aggressive alien fauna. And yes, your task is to descend into the bowels of the planet on a rocket storm, extract rare metals and minerals for character and weapon upgrades, kill monstrous bugs and return to the surface. And yes, you again control a space dwarf prospector, but this time you will be alone with the dangers below, as it should be in games of the vampire-like genre. "In underground space, no one will hear your scream..."
Instead of the usual survival genre in one large arena in Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor, there is an immersion, which, depending on the type of game, is divided into several stages - three, five, or even ten. In games of the "Destruction" type, you have to survive on a level, kill the boss, while simultaneously extracting minerals and fighting off small bugs. And then load into a rocket-drill and proceed to the next level. At the end, the Dreadnought super boss awaits you, or even several.
In games like "Escort", you have to guide a drilling machine to a target along a linear level, activate sub-level charges, and follow it to the next level. At the end, you have to extract a rare mineral while protecting your drill. And then evacuate again.
An interesting feature of Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor is the ability to break walls, which allows you to temporarily "hide" or escape from hordes of bugs, restrain them, and direct them along the path you need. Different biomes have different rock characteristics, plus somewhere more lava, somewhere thorns that deal damage to you, somewhere platforms for jumping.
Different dwarves have different bonuses, including different mining speeds, which significantly affects the gameplay. There are four basic classes in the game - scout, machine gunner, engineer and driller. As you gain experience, you can unlock eight more subclasses with their own starting weapons and bonuses. Everyone is fun to play, although I liked the engineer, who places a bunch of turrets around him, and the driller with his firearms and accelerated mining.
As it should be in vampire-like you gain experience, improve weapons or passive bonuses. Experience is given not only for killing bugs, but also for completing additional tasks on levels, such as collecting a specific ore, flowers or mushrooms. During the pause between levels, you can buy additional improvements with the collected gold and nitre.
Of course, there is also a meta-level in Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor, where you improve passive bonuses for all dwarf classes, complete tasks to gain mastery of a specific weapon (only one weapon is allowed), characters or locations, distribute useful ammunition items found during races that give their own bonuses, for example, drones-assistants of a different type. Plus, for obtaining achievements, of which there are as many as 300 (!), you receive bonuses to new ammunition and open new types of weapons and artifacts.
Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor has a bit too much of everything. Kill and escort missions, multi-species mastery missions, challenge missions, weekly missions, gradual difficulty increases, gate missions, tons of achievements with their own requirements, tons of classes and subclasses. This game, like the original Deep Rock Galactic, can get you stuck for a long time.
Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor was not developed by Ghost Ship Games itself, which acts as a publisher here, but by another Danish studio, Funday Games, which proposed adapting Deep Rock Galactic in the Vampire Survivors format. This was back in 2022, almost immediately after the phenomenal release of the game from Luca Galante.
Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor was released in Steam Early Access in February 2024 and sold 500,000 copies in its first week, which is already a big success for any indie project. As of now, sales have reached 2 million copies. Not bad for a spinoff.
So if you're a fan of the original Deep Rock Galactic, or, like me, a fan of the young vampire-like genre (these games remind me a lot of the classic Crimsonland (2003), which I spent dozens, if not hundreds of hours on at one time), then pay attention to Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor, it's definitely worth it. It's one of the deepest and most interesting vampire-likes of this year.
PS Special thanks to the game developers and our team UnlocTeam for the Ukrainian localization. It is complete and quite good, although some small technical errors should be fixed.
