Deep Rock Galactic: Rogue Core gets the gadgets out in a fighty new trailer
Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor is burrowing out of early access too
Excellent dwarven miner-shooter Deep Rock Galactic has been quiet for a while, but only because devs Ghost Ship Games having been putting the wrenches to its upcoming roguelite spinoff Deep Rock Galactic: Rogue Core. After last week’s teasing of some of the 'Reclaimer Tech' that Rogue Core’s bearded delvers will wield, we now have a meatier, action-heavy trailer showing how that kit can be put to use against rampaging xenobeasts.
The trailer, revealed during the Triple-I Initiative livestream, also end with the announcement of a closed alpha playtest, which aspiring battleminers can sign up for via Rogue Core’s Steam page. And that’s not the only DRG news to emerge, dusty and covered in alien bits, from the showcase, as Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor was confirmed to launch out of early access on September 17th.
I like Survivor a lot, but Rogue Core looks to stick far more closely to the co-operative sci-fi shooterin' of DRG Classic – fully destructible caves included. The dwarf classes are all new, mind: there’s the Slicer, an aggressive melee fighter, the defence-focused Guardian, the Spotter, who can soften up beefier targets, and the Falconeer, who commands a winged attack drone. In each run you’ll be hunting upgrades and new weapons while scrapping your way towards a lost excavation site, so I guess it makes sense that you can't just take DRG’s Driller and dig your way down there in a nice neat tunnel.
These new Reclaimer dwarves each get their own high-tech gauntlets, which sound like souped-up takes on the original game’s support tools. The Guardian’s Stonewall Repulsor Gauntlet, for instance, can not only throw up a protective shield – so far, so DRG Gunner – but also punt enemies off cliffs with a kinetic blast. The Slicer, meanwhile, gets a big old energy sword, which is a big old energy sword. Fair.
I was slightly worried, watching that teaser for the mostly-offensive Reclaimer Tech last week, that Rogue Core might shift aside DRG’s exploration and traversal facets in favour of a simpler killfest. This new trailer does calm those nerves by throwing in some mining and navigation bits, and I spy at least one zipline, so hopefully the pleasures of mastering your spelunking tools come through just as strongly as the thrill of exploding an interdimensional cave monster with a power fist. Also, it seems like some of the environments go heavy on abandoned mining infrastructure, and if there’s one thing I love exploring in games, it’s the decaying ruins of a once-prosperous industry that now stands only as crumbling monument to the builders' hubris.
As for Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor, that has a trailer of its own, running through the additions it’s made since its early access launch last year: new biomes, new bugs, mutators and suchlike. There’s obviously still some time before its 1.0 release in September, though the trailer also hints at some upcoming upgrades that could arrive before then, including a buffing can of legally distinct WD-40. Presumably it’s not as useful and powerful as real WD-40, or else spraying it would defeat all the baddies instantly while tripling the game’s framerate.