GOLD RUSH

DEEP ROCK GALACTIC: SURVIVOR has dug its way out of Early Access, and it rocks

- By Robin Valentine

It was easy to think when Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor was first announced that it was a cynical project. A spin-off of a popular game from a different developer, jumping on a new genre bandwagon, and seemingly built with reused assets. But over the last few years I've played a lot of different Vampire Survivors imitators, and all the way through Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor's run in Early Access, it’s been the king of the pack.

The core action of DRG:S is deceptively simple. Your dwarf miner is dropped onto an alien asteroid and tasked with mining for resources and surviving against escalating hordes of bugs. Your weapons fire automatically, and as you level up you're able to add new guns and fine-tune them with stat upgrades and modifiers.