Deep Rock Galactic, from Ghost Ship Games, gives fans a blend of the familiar and novel. To traverse expansive mines in search of ores is a well-known feeling among those who have played Minecraft; to fight off waves of charging enemies as best you can is reminiscent of many horde games. However, what Deep Rock Galactic manages is gameplay that feels, despite its familiarity, rather refreshing. Space-mining dwarves aren’t necessarily a common thing, either.
The game throws you in right from the start, learning the basics from someone over the comms who has abysmally little belief in you, and so the mining begins. But even with the basics down, everyone could use a few extra ideas when it comes to navigating the mines of Hoxxes IV.
10 Dirt Diggers
While the game’s endless mines are procedurally generated, there’s no guarantee that the wall you’ve been carving at will have another cave behind it. Rather, look around and see if there’s a dirt patch in the glow of the flare. If there is one, chances are there’s a cave behind it and it’ll be laced with some of the Morkite needed to meet the quota for the mission. Plus, there’s little reason to stick around in the same spot since, much like Left 4 Dead, if one waits around for too long, enemy waves will come their way. So find a dirt patch and get to hacking away at it.
9 If You Have The Time…
With every primary objective, there’s a secondary objective and it’s worth the time. Alongside hunting down Morkite or looking for alien eggs, players can search for Alien Fossils (10 required each time) or Apoca Blooms before the assignment is over and it’s time to book it back to the drop pod. Grabbing a drink back at the station can wait–extra credits and XP are waiting. Whether or not the extra credits will just go to the bartender, the XP is always welcomed and needed. Take the time and make the life-risking mission worth it.
8 Light The Way
Caves are dark and tricky. A few hours in Minecraft will make that painfully clear. On Hoxxes, the caves are no less sneaky in the dangers they offer, aside from the aliens who chase you down with a zombie-like determination. As such, be mindful of the flares. They’re not unlimited; in fact, they’re quite limited, so players will feel the temptation to simply shuffle around in some low light rather than throw yet another flare out.
Don’t give into the temptation. What lies in the darkness are holes waiting to be fallen into, and the worst thing for a four-man mining machine is being separated from one of their own. So make sure the way is lit to avoid a straight shot into the darkness.
7 Know Your Location
This would seem simple, seeing as players have to return to the drop pod to end the mission, but there’s something more to it than that. The game offers a great retr0-quality 3-D map, allowing the miner to see a small recreation of the area around them. This makes it easy to see the dimensions of a particularly dark and wide area and make sure that no wall goes unchecked for glittering ores.
The map is helpful in other, more stressful situations, too. When being chased down by a swarm of aliens into a room with some unusual structure to it, only to find the way forward blocked by another swarm, quickly check the map and see if there’s a way to lead them around a rock formation so they clear the way back to the drop pod. Sometimes, there’s no time to stand and fight.
6 Carving Out Environments
One of the greatest things about DRG is destructible environments, which haven’t been this fun since Battlefield Bad Company 2. Blow a hole in the rock wall or carve a staircase leading up to a hard-to-reach vein of Gold, and these are just two of many ways to use the environment to one’s advantage. If the hole into the next cave is too small for the whole team to pass through, it’s time to bring up the Engineer and have him blast it open for the trip back.
Though there might be a specific ore to find for the mission, or a goal having nothing to do with glittering things, there’s other ores worth carving the walls out to find and dump into the M.U.L.E. as one continues on further into the mines.
5 Teamwork Makes The Dream Work
DRG at its best is when a four-man squad is filled out and everyone has mics on. There is an option to play solo, and the dwarves themselves do fill up the silence with wisecracks and side comments, but the AI buddy that tags along doesn’t give the entertaining randomness factor to the game that other players do. Also, the AI has little to offer in the way of learning new things, and this matters a lot.
The best way to get good at DRG is to play with a good squad. Finding players who are spelunking veterans on Hoxxes is a rewarding experience for beginner players, as they’ll learn not only the mechanics of the game, but how to work more effectively in a team and make each mission as lucrative as it can be. When everyone’s in the caves, no stone goes unturned.
4 Upgrades! Upgrades! Upgrades!
Hoxxes has no shortage of dangers to offer, and it has no problem turning up the heat each and every time. The game gets harder, the caves seem longer, the aliens grow stronger and more in number, and there’s never enough ammo. What to do? Upgrade. While players can get much better at how they handle alien waves simply by playing, at some point that becomes not enough.
Instead, there are upgrades for weapons and equipment for each class. Do those secondary objectives, take as much as you can from the caves, and return to the station to make yourself into an even better dwarf miner than the one who went down the last time.
3 Assemble The Team
If playing in a full squad with all four classes, some of the best ways to fight back alien hordes are by using the specific talents of each class in tandem; specifically, the combined skills of the Engineer and the Scout. The Engineer boasts a platform-making gun that can be shot nearly anywhere, and the Scout has a grappling gun to reach those impossible places.
When alien hordes get extra rowdy and numerous, have the Engineer pop a platform higher up on the wall and have the Scout zipline to it. From there, the Scout can help take them down from above. Or, if an alien horde is not far behind, shoot a platform at a small cave opening and stop them in their tracks.
2 Assemble The Team
Everyone has their role to play in each Dwarven mining team. With the Engineer, the Scout, the Gunner, and the Driller to pick from, players can make a well-rounded team that can take on any mission. However, unlike other games with four-man squads each with a role, not every team has to have one of each class.
Everyone has a role, but everyone can dictate what that role is. Players can have a squad of 2 Engineers and 2 Gunners, or a squad made up entirely of Scouts. There are plenty of combinations with their own challenges, so it’s important to find out which class all four players excel at before going down.
1 Rock And Stone, Brethren!
As in many a-multiplayer game, players have one emote in the game, and it’s all players need. On PC, it’s a simple click of the letter “v” on the keyboard; on Xbox, it’s a click on the right analog stick, and the dwarf will shout with feeling “Rock and Stone!”
When playing online, the salute is a great way of making the squad feel they’re truly in this together. Plus, in these sprawling maps, it’s helpful to know one isn’t alone. True to Dwarven nature, all that glitters is essentially gold, and together players can salute the riches to be found behind that rock and stone!
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