Deep Rock Galactic: Rogue Core

It's obviously not DRG 2.0 (it was never meant to be). It's obviously not an expansion. It's a reduction/shrinkage. This leaves us with a Spinoff I guess. Something is indeed "off" with this Spin. BORING GAMEPLAY LOOP It's baseline DRG with a Twist. The whole game is just long Deep Dives consisting of [strike] Morkite [/strike] Expenite Mining Missions with some annoying bosses as a reward at the end. The game is extremely formulaic and the joy of cave exploration is gone. Every cavern feels the same and every mission feels the same. Drop down, rush to find the Bio-booster and the Workbench, mine a bit of Expenite, fight one or two core-spawn hordes, hit the elevator button... and repeat three to seven times. If you are lucky there might be some Bonus Events spawned or if you are extraordinarily lucky there might be DRG Drones and Geodes. That's it. The Devs will probably add more variety but the core loop of "Expenite Mining Missions only" needs to be expanded. UNINSPIRED ENEMIES The Glyphids in the main game were fun looking bugs. Fun to fight, fun to shoot, fun to gib. Slamming with a drop pod into this alien ecosystem to burn, loot and pillage the nature (living and unliving) was fun. Core-spawn on the other hand? Abstract demons/mutants who look like they crawled out of Metro 2033. Spawning from portals in the cave walls for whatever reason?! What is this - Faerun/Golarion meets DRG? Lore-wise we are deeper, sure. Rogue Core magic shennanigans probably ruined the local wildlife (except the Leeches of course, how fun)... as a result the caves feel even emptier. UNINSPIRED ROGUE-LITE ELEMENTS Artifact-tier upgrades feel good, but the rest is uninspired, boring percentual increases (20 % more damage, +12 armor, +20 HP) or "Do X elemental damage on Winter Solstice" Upgrades that make enemies drop Red Sugar on XYZ condition are mandatory for bullet-spongy, lengthy, annoying boss-fights (multiple boss invincibility phases). WEAPONS To end on a positive note - The weapons feel fun most of the time. Both the old and the new weapons. I just wish the new weapons were added to the main game. Some weapon upgrades are straight up unusable though. Few examples: Double barrel shotgun with a salvo - avoid this like Smallpox - uncontrollable recoil and a waste of ammo Hurricane with a salvo - avoid this like the Bubonic plague - words cannot describe how bad it is Plasma rifle with auto-aim - avoid this like the Plague of Justinian - it never shoots where you want it to PERSONAL NOTE I enjoy playing this with friends. In the same sense watching the paint dry would be more fun with friends. I would never play this on my own.

what a downgrade

Complaints : - Said to be "roguelike but DRG", but is just a randomizer game with DRG formula. - Upgrades are more like "deckbuilder" than actual upgrades for your class. - No starting loadout. (you dont get to enjoy your favorite starting gun everytime) - Class lock - Game either becomes too easy or too hard (Does not factor your builds RNG). - Game FELT like an extension for DRG despite being a standalone (Wish we get these new stuffs in base DRG) Overall, the game is early access and i do not discourage you from buying it, if you like DRG, you would like this too. It just does the "roguelike" so poorly i felt like im playing another DRG game but with randomizer formula to the mix (not roguelike).

i open the server browser and i can't join a single game except for one hosted by a guy on the other side of the world. half an hour later i find a server in my region and i join late, spawning with no weapons. refunded.

It's mid AF. No host transfer system on a p2p game in the big 26 is crazy.

In it's current state, I can't recommend it. The timer at times is fine at other times it is frustrating, like when one teammate decides to do the event, but the rest of us are trying to get to the elevator. The timer on the boss level is absolutely maddening. I'm not a fan of the powers, I see some people use them constantly and some use them never. It makes it clear that they weren't thought out and they don't make much difference in the game. I have time in it and it really hasn't drawn me in, even as an early adopter of DRG, this is one of the games I wish I passed on. I suggest Wild Wild West. I can't tell you how many times I have been burned by someone grabbing a card I absolutely need to tank my build. Also frustrating when you have 1 good weapon and the rest suck, but one person hearted the good weapon. So you select a crappy weapon and then another good weapon shows up and watching the player that hearted the good weapon get to pick the one you wanted, but wanted to be a good team player. The more I think about it, the more I want to tell the devs "F You!" You pretty much have single handedly ruined a lot of the good will that DRG gave you.

The game feels so unfinished rn, mayby in a year or two this might be playable but right now Deep Rock Galactic mogs this so bad. Don't recommend playing this game at the moment

This game is OK, but it still feels like a cut-down version of DRG. For now, at least, I can't find any aspect of the game that is better realised here than in DRG.

Generally I enjoy this game but it is missing something for me. I would say it's a 3/5 but unfortunately Steam reviews are binary so this got a negative vote. For me the biggest issues with this game stem from it being in the DRG universe. A lot of people talk about how they wish this had just been a DLC for DRG but I don't agree. I wish this had actually gone in the opposite direction and just stopped trying to be similar to DRG. This is supposed to be a combat focused game but, frankly, the combat in DRG is weak. It's at best mid level combat for an FPS. To point out another indie game, Far Far West has much more enjoyable combat and I don't think it's close. For DRG this is fine because mining is just as important as combat and people find it very rewarding. Here though where combat is the main focus, it's held back by wanting to be like DRG. The combat gets better the more you get used to classes. That being said, everyone is so insanely slow and it constantly feels like you're walking through mud. One class has a movement ability but aside from that they just feel like they're handicapped. Again to reference Far Far West, the movement there is smoother and you have a lot of options. I don't want this to be a comparison of the two games, I'm just trying to convey that other indie studios have produced similar games at similar times that feel better to play. I honestly think the timer is great but again feel like this is the same issue as before where they are stuck between a rock and a hard place. Plenty of DRG fans hate the timer (just look at the reviews) and in my experience it's because they want to explore the whole cave and take things slower. This game isn't DRG though and doesn't want you doing that without a very high risk. Since it has DRG in the name though it's fair to expect that people would think this would play similar to DRG. Again, it's trying to be it's own thing and very different while also being hamstrung by being in the DRG universe. I honestly think that there is no way to satisfy the design philosophy of this game while also trying to follow the standards of the DRG universe. They are entirely at odds with one another and you can tell while playing the game. As many have stated, the builds aren't really that exciting. I've played about 25 matches and have had a single build that was more than "Oh, that's nifty". The permenant upgrades you equip stack so you can build much better there than I originally thought. In game though I'm never getting upgrades that are jaw dropping. Lastly, I would like to reiterate that I think the classes are fun and the abilities are generally quite useful. I've played a few matches as each class and they all have something to add to the experience. I hope they add more down the road because other games in the genre generally have many playable characters. What we have is fine for early access but I hope by the time full release comes around it'll be more than what we have. I think there is plenty to like about this game but I also just think it's combat falls flat for a combat first game and would recommend many games ahead of this while also still having the PvE experience.