My Greatest Dive in Deep Rock Galactic

Single player modes in multiplayer games tend to be very disappointing. Understandably so; you don’t buy ‘Left 4 Dead 2‘ or ‘Rainbow Six Siege‘ to play by yourself. Cooperating or competing against other people is the whole point of a multiplayer game.

Unfortunately, I’m not the most sociable person. Ever since I was a kid, I’ve preferred to play by myself, whether it was a video game or during recess. (Yes, I am on the spectrum, how did you guess?) I only play multiplayer games if most or all my friends are there.

Which is how I got into ‘Deep Rock Galactic‘. My buddy sent me a copy so I could dig with my other friends. As fun as that was, I didn’t delve very far into it on my own. If I wasn’t digging with my lads ‘n lassies, I was playing something else.

In case you haven’t played it, DRG is an online co-op game all about danger, darkness, and dwarves. With a party of four (or more with mods; more on that later), you dive deep into asteroids to mine minerals, kill bugs, and complete various mission objectives for the Deep Rock company. It’s a highly enjoyable game, though it isn’t my usual cup of tea.

But the longer we played, the more the game grew on me. The sheer depth of its mechanics slowly became more and more clear. When our group unlocked Deep Dives, I practically became addicted. Even without my friends, I wanted to keep on playing.

At first, I hopped into lobbies to play with randos online. And this was also a great time; the DRG community is one of the most fun and welcoming I’ve ever come across in a video game. Alas, even with such wonderful people, my social battery just doesn’t last that long. Even so, I was determined to unlock all the weapons and rank up all the dwarfs ASAP.

So I started doing solo missions. It was fun, sure. But the caves just felt empty without my buddies laughing beside me.

Until one mission. A dive that lifted ‘Deep Rock Galactic‘ from a fun game I played with my friends to a certified masterpiece. Both in its multiplayer and its single player.

Our story begins with a lonely Engineer drinking alone on the Rig. It was Sunday night in the real world, and none of my friends were online. I had just blown all my cash and resources on upgrading a new gun. There was nothing to do but head into the mines and scrounge what gold and gems I might find.

The Weekly Assignment ordained that I do an escort mission. The objective: guard the Drilldozer to the Heartstone and acquire the gem within. As an extra bit of spice, the game handed me two negative modifiers: Elite Threat and Exploder Infestation. Put simply: stronger enemies appeared, and bugs would explode on dying. Setting the difficulty to Hazard 3, I went to prepare my kit.

When playing Engineer, I’m all about automation, crowd control, and energy. Armed with an all-electric Stubby Voltaic SMG and Breach Cutter, I became a walking plasma orb. While I didn’t have my real-world pals, I had two sentry turrets and ol’ reliable Bosco to help out and keep me company. In case that wasn’t enough, I had the Beast Master perk, allowing me to tame a bug, name it Steeve, and set it against its kin. And in case things got too hairy, I brought the L.U.R.E. grenades for distractions and/or dance parties.

Kitted out, I downed some health-increasing ale from the bar, entered the drop pod and descended into the mission. Unaware of the experience I was about to have.

Right off the bat, the mission hit a snag. A rather large, inconvenient one. And her name was Bet-C.

For you pointy-eared leaf-lovers in my audience, Bet-C is a highly powerful self-automated drone that will occasionally spawn in missions. Knock her down and fix her up, and you’ll have an extremely efficient ally to assist you. It’s bringing her down that’s the tricky part. See, she’s malfunctioning, and she can’t see the difference between a loyal Deep Rock dwarf and the average bug. If you want her firepower, you need to withstand it firsthand.

Luckily, this being an escort mission actually made my life a lot easier. Which is near the top of sentences I never expected to say or write. See, the Drilldozer carves tunnels in a straight line. Everything that wants to kill you is funneled into one narrow passageway. Bugs and Bet-C’s alike. By the time the Drilldozer stopped, Bet-C was already dead and ready for repairs. Which made the refueling process downright relaxing!

This made it easier to soak in the cave’s atmosphere. When you’re playing with friends, there’s almost always the sound of chatter, laughter, or dismayed screaming. On your own, it’s just you and the ambience. And with a giant super-bot killing most of the bugs for me, I really had a chance to soak it all in. For the first time, I realized just how beautiful this game could be.

Beautiful, and huge. The cave generated for this mission was absolutely enormous! Sure, it was inconvenient; refueling the Drilldozer from natural oil deposits was slow and tedious work, even with the help of my Platform Gun. But the ambient music and enormous scale were so awe-inspiring I just didn’t care. It felt like walking into Dwarodelf for the first time all over again.

Little did I know that I hadn’t seen anything. When the Drilldozer entered the Heartstone chamber, I was amazed to find an Alien Monument inside. These titanic spiraling structures have no bearing over gameplay; they’re purely there for visual spectacle and ambient storytelling. Combined with the strange confetti substance floating through the air, this room was genuinely beautiful.

The perfect place for a climactic final battle.

Breaching the Heartstone is a simple process. The Drilldozer slowly makes its way through four health bars. Your job is to protect ol’ Doretta from bugs, as well as the Heartstone’s own strange magical defenses. Should the Drilldozer be destroyed, the mission fails. So I set up my turrets, called in as many resupplies as I could afford, and hit the big red button.

What followed was the most clean and efficient battle I’ve ever fought. With Bosco and Bet-C’s help, we were able to flatten an Oppressor, one of the game’s tankiest enemies, in two seconds flat. A Mactera Graber appeared for the first time in the whole mission, swooping down on me like Mothra for a jump-scare before my turrets rescued me. Things were going so smoothly that I tried to tame an Elite bug as my new Steeve; unfortunately, the game didn’t allow that, so I settled for the regular kind. Not that it mattered. My defenses were so solid that we wiped out all bug resistance a solid ninety seconds before the Drilldozer was finished.

With the bugs eliminated and the Heartstone collected, it was time for extraction. On these missions, this is an easy process. Just go back the way you came, climb into the pod, and fly home. There’s just one hitch in that: Doretta. See, once the Drilldozer finishes it works, it explodes, leaving Doretta’s head lying around. If you choose to rescue her, she’ll fill your hands, leaving you defenseless. All you get for it is an extra line of dialogue, and seeing a little yellow robot head on the victory screen.

But in this household, we always save Doretta.

Escaping was much more hectic than the battle had been. Having to keep on the move, I was unable to set up my turrets for their extra firepower. It was entirely up to Bet-C and Bosco to keep me safe. Unfortunately, Bosco was distracted with safeguarding the Drilldozer’s useless corpse, and I forgot that I could call it back with the X key. So really, it was just me and Bet-C.

This is where things got really hairy. The tunnel had taken some pretty steep inclines, making traversal more slow and cumbersome than usual. Several Elite enemies, including an Elite Oppressor, swarmed me on the way out. Once I reached the pod, I had to wait a solid minute before the gate opened and I could extract. So I set up my turrets and hunkered down through the fight of my life.

When all was said and done, I was riding on cloud nine. All the mission objectives were complete, I’d earned a healthy bit of gold and minerals, and Doretta had been saved. In celebration, I threw down every L.U.R.E. I had and threw a little dance party. With a hearty “Rock and Stone!” I entered the pod and returned to my mining station. I even got the “Mutated Scavenger” achievement as an extra cherry on top.

Thanks to my exemplary performance, I had made a sizable profit. But not quite sizable enough to pay for my next upgrade. In fact, I was still rather far behind.

With a heavy sigh and another ale, my little Engineer dove back into the mines.

This is the magic of ‘Deep Rock Galactic‘. Even if you’re playing by yourself, the game can weave an incredible narrative experience purely through its gameplay. No lengthy exposition or character arcs. Just you and whatever the game throws at you.

Although, with all that said, the game is still most fun with friends. Go figure, the co-op game is best played as a co-op game. Forging your own little mining stories is enjoyable. But doing so with your buds is definitely the stronger experience.

Especially when you get into the mods. Which the devs openly support, allowing you to set them up with just the click of a button. My personal favorite being the big lobby mod. Digging around with four friends is great. Opening the lobby to upwards of fifteen or more turns it into chaotic nonsense. The DRG community is one of the most warm and welcoming in all of online gaming! It’s genuinely some of the most hilarious fun I’ve ever had!

Hell, you don’t even need to dive to have fun! There are plenty of things you can do on the Rig itself! You can kick barrels, turn the gravity off, dance at the bar, play basketball, set up a soccer game with goals and everything, hell, there’s even a Prop Hunt clone!

It certainly helps that the game actually rewards you for playing. You can unlock a ton of upgrades and cosmetic upgrades simply by playing the game. Even after a hundred hours of play, I’m nowhere near unlocking everything!

Yes, there are DLC cosmetics. But these are more than reasonably priced, and they frequently go on sale. Plus, what you get is actually cool enough to warrant the price tag. It’s such a positive system that I decided to pick some up just to show support for the devs. And it barely put a scratch on my wallet!

‘Deep Rock Galactic‘ is a genuine masterpiece. Both as a multiplayer co-op game and a single player experience. It’s beautiful to look at, affordable, and a ton of fun to play! I barely even touched on how fucking incredible the music is! This is one of those kinda experiences that I remind me why I love video games!

Even if some of the caves it generates make me want to cry. For every beautiful cavern or straight tunnel, there are ten rat mazes the size of Jupiter. Hope you have a better sense of direction than me.

Thank you all very much for reading. This was a huge one, so I especially appreciate it today. Hopefully it was as enjoyable for you as it was for me. Until I see you all again, keep healthy and stay safe.

Rock and Stone!