u/joriz2012

DISCLAIMER: this is actually a repost of my steam review that im just posting here, and i already made a post here with some of my criticisms earlier, but this was a more "proper review" and i felt like posting this here. also because i really want to know how others feel or if people agree/disagree with me which is another reason im posting here. anyways here's the post:

Honestly, I'm really sad to put negative on this because this was my most anticipated game ever since it was unveiled in 2023.

For context, I am a huge fan of Deep Rock Galactic and Roguelikes/roguelites, so when I first heard about DRG:RC I was pretty hyped since I loved both the game and the genre and I thought it was a match made in heaven, but unfortunately this game ended up being quite a big letdown for me.

A lot of other reviews have already talked about some of the issues that I also have, like very bland terrain generation or the multiplayer selecting thing. I actually have NOT played any multiplayer as I wanted to experience the game solo, so do keep this in mind that everything I say is from a solo player's experience.

But all around, I don't really want to repeat what every other negative review is saying and would rather offer more specific problems that I personally had and haven't seen others talk about, at least yet

1. Movement in this game feels really sluggish: There's no real movement complexity or tech that exists. It's just sprint and you can climb walls. For a game that has a pretty heavy emphasis on getting from point A to point B, this is kinda shocking.

It doesn't feel like there's any skill ceiling or skill expression when it comes to moving around and navigating your surroundings, its all super basic, and I think a really large problem that contributes to this is the fact that your traversal/utility tool is randomized. I was pretty surprised by that, since I was assuming each reclaimer would have their own unique traversal/utility tool, but they don't.

I think a huge improvement would be to give each reclaimer a permanent traversal/utility tool that they spawn with, it feels weird that they don't. The closest thing that exists to a movement ability that any reclaimer has is Slicer's dash, which even then that dash doesn't feel that good since it doesn't go very far.

2. The gameplay is really uninteresting: The main name of the game is that you get expenite which give you general upgrades, then you'll occasionally find toolboxes that give your weapons upgrades, and then a bio upgrade that gives your ability an upgrade. There's occasionally events that'll show up where if you complete them, you'll get rewarded with a lot of expenite and subsequently a bunch of upgrades.

The goal of each stage is to navigate through the cave while following a wire that eventually leads to an elevator, where you activate the elevator and defend from a horde of enemies for a certain amount of time before entering the elevator and going to the next stage, where you do this exact same process again. That is a huge issue for me.

I find this to be really shocking because they actually had a good solution for this in DRG. In DRG, there's deep dives where its a continuous run with multiple stages, like DRG:RC, except each stage there would involving completing different missions. It wouldn't be the exact same every single time. One stage would be collecting morkite, the other would be a mini oil refinery. This was much more interesting than DRG:RC, where it's the same each time. You navigate your way through a pretty linear cave that eventually leads to an elevator that you defend for a bit and then move on to the next stage.

What's even weirder to me is that the "elevator defense" part isn't interesting at all. It's just another horde. In something like Risk of Rain 2, the end goal is to get to the teleporter and move on to the next stage, but the teleporter would spawn in a boss(es, sometimes) you would have to defeat. Here, this doesn't happen. It's just another swarm of enemies, which already happens during the stage.

This is really disappointing, but I do have faith they can fix this because I mean they essentially already did in DRG with deep dive stages. They already had this concept down, I'm sure they can implement this to make stages way more memorable and interesting.

3. There's too much expenite: Ok so this one is kinda just "complaint 2.5" rather than complaint 3 but whatever. At least in my experience playing solo, collecting expenite isn't really fun. It just feels kinda tedious to do, but you have to do it in order to scale and upgrade, otherwise you'll start falling behind.

At least in solo, I wish that there was less expenite to collect and subsequently upgrades require less expenite because it's just not interesting to do this at all. Alternatively, maybe do more to make the expenite collection process more interesting and maybe even have upgrades dedicated to collecting expenite faster or getting more for it per hit or something, like these things I think could make it more interesting to collect and go after because right now it just feels like a complete chore. I have to collect expenite to avoid falling off, but it's just not fun to collect.

4. There's just not enough synergies or combos you can do: This is my shakiest point yet, and if I continue to play further this can absolutely change. But in my experience after playing for 4 hours, there are just not really that many synergies, archetypes, or builds you can do. As others have pointed out, a majority of the upgrades are pretty basic stat increases (deal more damage, reload faster, less spread, etc). But along side that, there's generally just not that many interesting options to things to go for. Like I can't go "im fireboy i want to do 5 billion fire" because there's just not many fire related archetypes or synergies to build off of.

As for weapons, I honestly don't get why they reused a lot of weapons from DRG but made some new weapons because now, a lot of those new weapons end up feeling like weapons from DRG, except those weapons are in the game already. Like it's kinda an "illusion of choice" scenario where all the pistol weapons, some returning from DRG, some completely new, all feel almost the same form each other and don't do anything differently.

I think this needs a massive rework in order to actually make things more interesting to play, because right now its all just super super generic with no real eye catching game changer or "run defining" upgrades or anything like that, it really sucks to see.

At its core, I'm just really letdown by this game. I was expecting to absolutely love it and play 300 hours of it month 1, but instead the idea of me doing another round just feels really tiring and almost more like a chore since I know I won't really enjoy it. I have faith that GSG can fix things, and that's honestly the reason I'm writing this review. Because I have faith that they'll actually read it, and all the other criticisms they're facing, and implement solutions I hope, but this game has definitely soured my opinion on them a bit. I cannot recommend this game at its current stage, which is really a huge letdown.

Ok to be clear: I'm only playing solo at the moment, so keep in mind this is about solo mode but it could maybe apply to multiplayer as well, but I don't know since I haven't played. I also do feel like I could be in the minority, but that's partially why I'm making this post. I want to hear how others feel and confirm if I actually am in the minority of people or if others have the same issue

That said, the gameplay feels weirdly sluggish to me. For a game that directly said its "faster-paced" and "more intense" it really doesn't feel like that? I feel like I've been barely thinking about what I'm doing.

I think part of the issue is that the characters themselves feel pretty slow and that all the traversal options don't really increase movement speed or save a lot of time either. And AFAIK, there's no movement speed increase upgrades or anything.

There's also a lot of expenite to collect, which at least for me it kinda gets tedious trying to collect them all since there's no real way to speed it up or upgrades to make the collection process go by faster (to be clear i am using cooper to mine the expenite, i know that exists, it still feels slow).

You obviously want to collect all the expenite you can so you can scale faster, but it feels like there's too much expenite and it gets tiring having to collect them all because if you don't, then you are inherently getting weaker.

And then some of the expenite events are just kinda "defend this position for x amount of time," you can't really make it go by faster. You just have to sit there and wait for the event to finish for the reward.

I'd also like to mention that every stage feels the same. It's always the same end goal of "get to the elevator." At least in DRG, the deep dives which are similar to this games base missions, have different tasks each stage so you wouldn't be repeating the same thing over and over, but here you do. The stages are the same, with the twist being that you can select a modifier but that modifier doesn't really change the gameplay all that much. It's just "more x enemies spawn" or "enemies deal x more damage"

For a game that said it's more intense and faster-paced, I never feel like I'm in "the hot seat" and actively playing out of my mind to get to all the important sections of the map as fast and as efficiently as possible, but here I just don't feel the need to do that ever, and part of it feels like its because I just can't.

There's not enough movement complexity through abilities and whatnot, the foundation to do cool stuff with movement isn't there.

I was honestly kinda shocked to see them just reuse DRG traversal items because I assumed every reclaimer would have their own unique traversal items, but they simply don't.

They don't have any unique items to themselves. The abilities, which is what distinguishes the classes from each other, are all mainly combat focused, with the exception of slicer's dash which does offer a bit of movement (which that dash also kinda doesn't feel like it dashes far enough, so it doesn't even feel that good to use imo).

I really hope they change that and give each reclaimer their own unique traversal / movement option, because complex movement is really fun and adds a lot to a game imo. It's the main reason why I loved scout so much in DRG, the grapple hook was fun to mess around with and it felt like it was speeding gameplay up.

Idk man. As for just a general review, I've been kinda disappointed with Rogue Core as someone who is a huge fan of DRG and roguelikes/roguelites.

There's a plethora of other issues I didn't mention primarily because others have already pointed them out (upgrades don't feel meaningful as they're mainly just stat upgrades, environments/cave generation is really uninteresting, etc) which those issues I think also contribute greatly to the "sluggish feeling" gameplay I'm experiencing, but I really hope they do fix these up over the coming months.

To be completely honest, if this game did not have the Deep Rock Galactic branding on it I would not have bought this as the gameplay hasn't really sold me at all. This game doesn't really feel like it stands on it own legs at the moment and just kinda relies on being Deep Rock Galactic but kinda different. It is early access though, and I do have faith they will change things, but at the moment it has been a letdown for me personally.