izigame.me

Okay, I kind of feel the need to write this review simply because it's my most played game on Steam.

I understand that my point of view and playtime of Deep Rock Galactic aren't the norm, but seeing as how I love this game and have a lot to say about it, I think it's worth exploring those opinions and thoughts.
DRG, at its core, is a class-based co-op shooter set in procedurally generated caves. Your goal in every mission is to collect resources by mining ores and shooting a lot, and I mean A LOT of bugs. There are four classes to choose from, each having their own weapons, movement abilities, and most importantly, role and "job" in the team. You can level up your class by collecting upgrade materials in missions, used to add buffs to weapons and movement tools.
Now on the whole, that is about as brief of a summary I can give without going into the minutiae of Deep Rock Galactic. There are a LOT of other details about the gameplay loop, class perks, Overclocks, and the roles and quirks of the classes themselves. However, if you would like the joy of learning and experience all of that on your own and wouldn't like to read my thesis on DRG, then you can stop reading and take my recommendation and pull the trigger on purchasing the game.
For those still interested in reading, strap in.
To give some context on how and why I'm writing the rest of this review, I'll start with how I began playing DRG and why I continue to play it. This was my comfort game during the s**tshow that was the year 2020. My friends and I picked up the game to help us through the trying time, and we were hooked. Fast forward five years, and I am the only one of my original friend group who has over 200 hours in the game or plays it today. As their interest waned in the game, I played more and more with randoms in public lobbies, which led me to play with people in the official Discord server, where I met some really great people and became friends with a lot of them.
I say all of that because a lot of multiplayer or co-op games rely on, and indeed assume, that you are playing with friends or at least people who make the game entertaining in its own right. I have never held a belief that a game which is "more fun with friends" is a good thing in and of itself. Technically, ANYTHING is more fun with friends. A s**t game is more fun with friends. It doesn't mean the game itself is worth playing.
Deep Rock Galactic, on the other hand, allows for fun to be had regardless of whether you're with a group of close buddies or complete strangers. A lot of that is due to the amount of agency and player autonomy each person has in the group. There aren't any keycards or similar that require two or more people to simultaneously engage with. There aren't specific enemies that require elite military-like coordination in order to take down. Each player and class has, to varying degrees, a manner to handle any and all situations the game throws at you. Obviously, certain classes and playstyles have their strengths and weaknesses, and good teamwork is always desirable, but there's not really any reliance on teammates outside of picking up downed players. DRG walks a very fine tightrope of giving each individual freedom to act autonomously, while also giving you an important role in the group context. Which brings us to the classes:
As said, there are four classes to choose from: Driller, Engineer, Gunner, and Scout. Each have their own niche and role in the group:
Driller's main role in the group is twofold. His primary weapons, with his starter weapon being a flamethrower, allows him to clean up trash and low priority enemies, as well as give debuffs to tankier targets. His movement ability, the drill hands, allows him to tunnel through terrain very quickly and efficiently. He is often seen at the front of the group, making pathways for his teammates and clearing out a spot to fight with both his drills and C4.
Engineer is probably the hardest to describe succinctly. In lower difficulties and lower bug density environments, he struggles to find a particular role outside of securing holds and points of interest. This is due to his main tool, his automatic turrets, being stationary and moving them around, placing them, and then building them, especially during moments of chaos, can be troublesome. He is also the least ammo efficient class, owing to him having to pick and choose a lot of "fight or flight" moments. However, when the difficulty is raised and larger swarms are part of the mission, he really shines. His aforementioned turrets can help pick off low health enemies, his primaries are all servicable "get off me" weapons, and two of his three secondaries are quite amazing at killing large groups of enemies very quickly (Sorry PGL, hope you get the love you deserve someday <3). His movement tool, the platform gun, allows for you to place "shelves" into walls allowing for players to climb and scale up terrain very easily. It also has a lot of hidden tech that I don't really need to get into here, and is largely the most slept-on portion of his kit.
Gunner, in contrast, is very easy to describe. He presses LMB, and holds it until he needs to stop pressing it, either when he runs out of bullets or things to shoot. His primaries are all large and in charge, ranging from the standard minigun to a Flak-cannon to a guided missile launcher, all of which pack a punch. He's also the class with the highest degree of survivability, owing to his insane DPS (Best defense is a good offense), and his bubble shield. His shield can be used offensively, thrown into an unexplored room to clean it out, or defensively, such as reviving a teammate and giving them some breathing room or holding a position. He makes up for all of this by having, in my opinion, the worst and most situational movement tool: The zipline. Slow, dangerous, makes you a target for flying enemies, and capable of falling off of it make it very risky to use it any other way except downhill.
Last but certainly not least is Scout. As his name suggests, his job is indeed to scout out rooms and light them with his flare gun. I may not have mentioned it yet, but this game is incredibly reliant on light, as the caves can range from dim and atmospheric to pitch black nothingness. He also has access to a grappling hook, which is less Spiderman and more "Look at a wall and get pulled toward it". This leads to a natural progression of logic that Scout is more often than not the resource bag of the team, owing to his ability to reach high up ores and objectives. As for his guns, they are best used to pick off important targets, such as highly disruptive enemies, or enemies that are out of reach of the less accurate guns the other classes might have equipped.
This seems like a very comprehensive description of what these classes do, but I'm leaving out a lot of synergies and interplay that they have with each other (Volatile Bullets + Flamethrower, Sludge Pump + Fire Bolts, etc). I would go into more details such as Overclocks, perks, difficulties, enemy varieties, and fun little distractions in the Hub area, but I have found out that there is a character limit on Steam reviews... so...
I cannot recommend Deep Rock Galactic enough. It's so fun I spent an hour and a half thinking of things to put into this review, ran out of space, and am now trying to summarize in what little space I have left. Just buy it and give it a shot. It's worth your money and time. It's a blast and I'm still playing five years later.