Deep Rock Galactic Review (Autogyro)
I come from competitive TF2, from War Thunder, from OW, from freaking Rainbow Six Siege where the mire of toxicity and cheaters and bots and paid battle passes and the thousand and two ways game companies try to milk you for cash are just a part of EVERYDAY EXISTENCE. First person shooters where everyone talks trash, f***s over their teammates, baits them, leaves them to die, head shots them for speaking, or just ignores that they even exist. Where the formats of the games support, encourage, and even reward the "I'm better than all you losers" attitude in every direction.
I hadn't realized how much energy was getting sucked from me at every turn until I started this game.
Ghost Ship said that they start at the very basis of the game by making it cooperative. And with the way the mechanics of this game works, the vast majority of this community is supportive, helpful, and will go out of their way to make things work well for you. The simple mechanic of everyone shares in everything that's gained during the game is genius. Cheaters can't take anything from anyone else. The whole host system make it impossible for bots to ruin people's day. If someone's trying to ruin a game you're hosting, you can kick them. It's amazing.
And the weapons and dwarves have vast variety in abilities, adaptability to your game play and style, and everyone can tackle it as hard or as casually as they desire. And I think this game actually does a good job of meeting TF2 levels of Funny. I have friends who do Haz 5 as the Only Way To Go and others who prefer to just play at Haz 3 and talk, enjoy themselves, and make more gradual progress while enjoying the heck out of the loadouts they have. None of those ways are "wrong". The possible ways to progress in abilities are the Perk System, Weapons, Weapon Upgrades, Overclocks, and just playing the game to figure out how it all works.
And the game itself gives me these amazing interludes to just be with the people I choose to play with. We can explore these vast, beautiful, new caverns with each other and marvel at what we find, have beers together and kick a few barrels at the base, or do stupid Funny things with mobility boosts for the sheer joy of it and have our friends bring us back when we fall.
The battle pass system is FREE. There is NO paid track. You can't just Go Fast By Flinging Money at the company. It's also mostly cosmetic, but also gives you rewards of minerals that help you progress on equipment. And after the season, those cosmetics are available in other ways. There's no missing out on a Hat that has come and gone.
You can pay Ghost Ship more money by buying their DLC cosmetic packs. I flung as much as I could and then bought more games for more people and got a full XBox setup to play with a friend there as well. Anything that will persuade Ghost Ship to DO MOAR is a priority in my book.
The game play is generational, varied, and the numerous and entirely gorgeous biomes all have their own characteristics and barriers. The missions are all different and when mixed and matched with the biomes create a vast array of adventures that never really feel like they repeat. I can pick how many enemies I want to come up against and how hard they are to defeat and we get rewarded in proportion to that. There's a lot to learn. I love the music, too, and how it heralds swarms and intense combat situations.
All that AND hats. Coming from TF2, I value Hats and cosmetics and being able to personalize MY characters. *laughs* It's a good thing, and there are so many ways to customize the way your funny little men look as well as how they play and what they can do.
So, yeah, I encourage you to get it, and if you're one of my friends, ping me and we'll play.