Space Dwarves

Lore & Background

The dwarves of Deep Rock Galactic are employees of an intergalactic mining corporation, sent to the alien planet of Hoxxes IV. Its caves are rich in precious minerals but filled with hostile wildlife and environmental hazards. Players choose one of four playable classes: Scout, Engineer, Gunner, and Driller. Each class has a unique loadout of weapons and tools, giving them varied capabilities in combat and navigation. By working together to take advantage of how their different capabilities interact, teams can more efficiently navigate a cave, complete objectives, and fight enemies. As an example, the Engineer class can shoot platforms onto cave walls, while the Scout class has a personal grappling hook. In order to mine a difficult-to-reach mineral deposit high up on a wall, an Engineer could shoot a platform beneath the deposit, which a Scout could then grapple onto for safe access to the deposit. When playing solo, players can choose to be accompanied by a flying robot called APD-B317 (nicknamed "Bosco"), which assists with objectives and combat.

In Their Own Story

The game features various progression systems, such as new weapons, equipment upgrades, and cosmetics, that can be purchased using credits and crafting minerals obtained from missions. By completing challenges, players can also acquire perks; these give dwarves additional abilities, such as increased running speed. Since 2021, there have been seasonal events in which players can unlock items via a free battle pass-like system. Players have the option to switch active seasons at any moment outside of a mission, including having no active season. All of the unique rewards each season contains can be obtained by playing through its corresponding season. Deep Rock Galactic has a total of 10 game modes, also referred to in game as missions: Mining Expedition, Egg Hunt, On-site Refining, Salvage Operation, Point Extraction, Deep Scan, Escort Duty, Elimination, Industrial Sabotage, and Heavy Extraction.

Reader's Guide

Each mission type can be played on six different difficulties, called hazard levels. Each level increases enemy health, damage, and spawn volume and frequency. Missions can also have one of three mission lengths and cave complexity modifiers, which gives players a longer objective and makes the cave bigger and more complex respectively. There are also randomly assigned modifiers that a mission can have up to two of. These modifiers are broken into two categories, being Anomalies and Warnings, with Anomalies typically having good or neutral effects, and Warnings having negative effects but offering more experience to compensate. In addition to standard missions, there are two special mission types, referred to as Deep Dives and Elite Deep Dives. In these, a randomly generated sequence of three missions in an ascending difficulty is created, with the biome, mission type, modifiers, and layouts being almost entirely random. All three missions must be completed consecutively, although resources are carried over between each of the three missions.

Did You Know?

• Deep Rock Galactic was developed by Danish studio Ghost Ship Games and published by Coffee Stain Publishing.
• The game entered early access on February 28, 2018, and was fully released on May 13, 2020 for Microsoft Windows and Xbox One.
• The game has sold over eight million units as of January 2024.
• The solo mode helper robot is officially named APD-B317, nicknamed "Bosco".
• The game's development was inspired by both Minecraft and Left 4 Dead.