Deep Rock Galactic: Rogue Core

DRRC is a roguelike FPS set in the Deep Rock universe. It offers a vastly different gameplay experience compared to its predecessor. The variety of minerals you mine is stripped down to one, the classes have been reworked nearly entirely, and the level design has taken a significantly more linear approach. Steam Curator: store.steampowered.com/curator/36307721-Healthy-Criticism/ I want to touch on the gameplay first because it is the most noteworthy part of the game. The main goal is to reach depth level 4 and defeat the boss fight in order to reclaim the node from the monstrous aliens. The freeform cave exploration is no longer present, traded for a more linear, mostly flat approach. Track down the cable to the elevator, complete mostly the same side objectives over and over again, and reach the bottom level where a boss fight awaits. You are constantly racing against the clock, which forces a sense of urgency to push through the levels. The time limit is something I partly criticise. In Deep Rock Galactic, the longer you stayed in a level the stronger the enemies got. You were technically racing against time, but in a different way. Now, when the timer runs out, invulnerable anomalies start to appear that will eventually tear you a new one. That does happen in the video too, but luckily we were able to push through to the next level. You will eventually gain materials to unlock power ups for your characters to make traversing the caverns easier. I find those upgrades to be mostly fluff, however. They increase effectiveness, but not to a dramatic degree. That is partly the theme with this game. What is here is serviceable, but not to an effective level. The classes all have their own unique abilities and weapons. I genuinely do not find any of them interesting to use, nor do I find myself strongly preferring one over another. I like the Falconer class for its skill, but I absolutely hate the weapon it comes with. The classes feel forced, with very little planning or thought behind them. The original classes in the main game work so well because they each serve a very specific role and complement each other effectively. Here, they just kind of exist to merely serve as an option for players. Speaking of weapons, if you find the workbench in each level and bring the toolbox to it to enable it, you are given the option to either pick a new random weapon or upgrade an existing one. When picking a new one, you must sacrifice either your starting weapon or 50% of your ammo capacity. Some weapons are inoffensive, some are absolutely abysmal. Enemy variety is mediocre as well. Each time you descend a level, you must pick a bane and a boon to keep things interesting. Some banes are obviously a non-concern, but this game relies on a democratic vote for choices, which means you are at the mercy of people randomly clicking through to proceed to the next step. Another thing shared with teammates is upgrades. Each time a perk becomes available, you take turns picking one for yourself. You can communicate to your team if you want a specific perk when your turn is last, but it cannot be reserved. I find this mechanic interesting, but it can cause friction in public lobbies, understandably. When I write reviews, I try to set my personal preferences aside and look at a game through as objective a lens as possible. I am not a big fan of this variation of the roguelike genre, but I have certainly played other games with a more well put together package. The lack of interesting level design makes for an increasingly repetitive experience in a genre already predisposed to it. The poorly conceived classes fail to inspire synergy or a sense of need for one another in a game with 5 classes and 4 player squads. The lacklustre rewards combined with the overall sluggish pace make me question whether I want to commit to a roughly one hour session that is unlikely to leave me satisfied. https://youtu.be/eehn2_Q0u5o

So like.. honestly.. its far from anything right now. i would recommend waiting atleast 2+ years for this game before making a hasty purchase. So this is not supposed to be DRG 2.. yet we have more assets from DRG in this game than anything that would make RC Unique. Upgrades are very boring. Nothing exciting. Cave generation is also boring, same old biomes. Enemies are.. kinda boring, they follow the same build as the bugs did in DRG, a squishy core spawn, the armored corespawn, the hard hitting corespawn, the big bulky breaths on you corespawn, Bosses.. disappointing, each boss has like 1 or 2 homming little piss projectile attacks atleast, then another attack, like one melee and nothing else. You don't even get to kill the bosses, they just get sent back to the corespawn dimension after you fondle some balls. For a roguelike game they would need atleast 5x the amount of engagement and interactions and attacks to be good. Honestly i don't see this game going anywhere anytime soon, they released early access.. fixed things that they already knew were bad.. then released like 1 new enemy (that basically just flies and shoots at you) and 1 weapon then they announced that its time for vacation. Like sure people need to rest but.. what were they doing with this game all along then? Basically this feels like an overpriced DLC for Deep Rock Galactic.

在drg，队友大都是弥补短板的伙伴，在rc，队友大都是竞争者。 一个共用卡池，就埋下了无数不满的种子——抢牌、抢关键牌、抢伤害牌仅仅因为其他几张都是防御/近战牌。目前平衡性也极差，轰然退场居然是绿色品质，减4点伤害竟是强化剂，队友运气好先抓牌=你运气不好。当运气与队友同时发力，这把大概率与你无关了。 卡池在更新后有许多弊端，比如在选重武器界面，明明可以选一个，把后面的武器翻出来，但因为自己不需要就选加弹药量，曾几何时我也以为这是个团队游戏，也曾用钻头为拿照明弹的队友引路。路人的意识都是参差不齐，不像drg各个职业都有主要职责，即使不说，标记一下侦查就会去挖硝，工程就会打板，在rc，大家都忙着探索做事件，清理自身周围的怪，经常遇到有人落单被包围，直到倒地队友才发现，其实我能理解，毕竟每层都限时，要提高效率，但很多人意识不到——自己拿了好牌足以压制怪潮，不会去思考队友的能力是否能自保/队友是否有工具爬上高墙，这就是鬼船想要的团队配合吗。 当你知道怎么抓能提高体验，每把都会变得极度的公式化，最后不是成型就是在成型的路上，明明是个肉鸽，但道路在开局就确定了。若是队友跟你流派相近，他还会成为你路上的阻力。 玩了这么久，我觉得鬼船应该赔我钱。

I can't in good faith recommend this game. As an avid roguelike obsessive and someone with hundreds of hours in DRG, I was incredibly excited for this game. Initial reviews weren't great so I waited until after the first big patch. This game is insanely hard, but it never feels like its hard in a way that I can improve on. Even on the lowest "cautious" difficulty, i am running out of ammo on the 2nd or 3rd floor, in the midst of 5+ minutes of pure combat, and then i hear a "swarm incoming" message as I watch my corpse be danced on by 30+ enemies after i just killed over a hundred. There is no time for exploration, not enough ammo, and an incredible array of "feel bad" mechanics that make me want to play less with each inevitable and horrific loss. I have watched videos to see what I'm missing, but it seems I'm already using the "meta builds" which are still outright useless if your weapon isn't exactly perfect. Very rarely do I die and feel that I had any opportunity to survive. This game genuinely feels like it's punishing me for playing, and the upsides of the exceedingly rare victory are entirely negligible. I may pick this game up again in the future, but for now it'll be back to DRG until this game actually is balanced and enjoyable. I don't expect Danger 1 levels of ease, but I DO expect to feel like a loss is something I could have possibly prevented.

Listen to the community instead of listening to yourselves.

So, DRG never had the best gunplay or graphics - but it was fine, because it was all about fun discovery and creative problem solving, unlocking cool upgrades or weapons... Rogue Core is somehow all the worst parts of DRG... no time, no discovery, no new weapons just RNG and stressing over ammo and countdowns. I have to wonder if a different team made Rogue Core, because so much of what was fun in DRG just... isn't even here? Did anyone understand why the original was such fun?? It doesn't seem like they did...

Game absolutely flopped. Imagine having a huge fanbase from original DRG, having ALL-TIME PEAK 42,176 players and now barely 1000 players on the game even on weekends. I had this game wishlisted for long time, was so happy for roguelites because I love those type of games, just for it to literally ruin itself with most stupid stuff that was unnecessary like the timer, upgrades that you have to wait for other players to select and steal the upgrades you needed. Why couldn't you make that everyone has their own upgrade to select like you'd do in Gunfire Reborn or Risk of Rain...? Waited for the "big" 01 update just to get same amount of players, no changes. Also not to mention how short are the levels with some constructions / ladders leading to an absolute wall or NOWHERE. I expected them to be longer and bigger map with more stuff. If you're considering on buying, please pass..

“Ammo sold separately” or “Ammo not included” should be the game’s main theme. Tutorial? Ran outta ammo. First mission? Ran outta ammo. Did anybody working on this game stop to think... Guns need bullets? Also, why wasn’t this game just a new game mode for the original DRG game? I love the original DRG game, but I’d wait to buy this one. Needs a lot of work.

When I saw a new DRG game, I bought it immediately, without question. I should not have. This is DRG repackaged, not very well, and resold without any real reason to replay like DRG. Very little character development, weapons are temporary, just.. disappointing honestly.