Have you ever played PAYDAY 2 and thought "Man, this is fun, but... I wish the devs stopped their various scummy business practices, that I didn't need to get the latest of many DLC's to keep up with my teammates, or heck, even need to get DLC's to get non-cosmetic items at all!" Have you ever played a game with a battle pass and thought "This system would be neat and all, but I wish I didn't need to play constantly just to get everything before the season ended, and I wish there was a way to get stuff from past seasons so I didn't have to feel like I'm forced to play out of FOMO." I had both these issues before playing DRG (Deep Rock Galactic), but now I'm happy as a Dwarf that's been offered free beer!

Deep Rock Galactic is a fun co-op game where you and up to 3 other dwarves team up to complete missions on the planet Hoxxes. A certain amount of these randomly-generated missions are available at any given time, and the selection refreshes every 30 minutes with new missions.

There's a lot of things keeping these missions interesting every time you play them. There are several possible mission types, with several possible secondary objectives, and a variety of possible biomes (each with unique traits and features) the mission can take place in. The cave system in each mission is procedurally generated and given both "complexity" and "length" scales from 1-3 each. In addition, the game has a variety of random events, creatures, and rare ores that have a chance of appearing in each mission, and each mission can have up to 3 mutators on it (up to 2 that make the mission more difficult and 1 that has a beneficial effect). There are a variety of possible mutators, and those that have more difficulty-increasing mutators (or "hazards") award higher bonuses. On top of all that, there's the variety in team composition: There can be up to four dwarves in a team, each can be one of four different possible classes, each of which has several options for their gear, most of which have several different possible upgrade combinations (they can have one upgrade from each "tier"), and the primary and secondary can also have one of several different possible overclocks, which could potentially either slightly modify the guns' stats or severely alter how it's utilized in the first place! And on top of all that, each dwarf can have up to 3 passive and 2 active traits, and you can save several of these loadouts if you want to swap between them. Overall, all these possible options mean there's a lot of variety each time you play, especially when you play in public lobbies.

Speaking of public lobbies, DRG has one of the friendliest and most unique communities I've ever come across in a multiplayer game. While there still is the rare troll once in a blue moon, those are extremely few and far between. There are several aspects of the game that help contribute to this; Firstly, the game gives everyone the rewards for each mission, so there are very few (if any) ways to benefit from being selfish in this game. The hub world also helps foster a sense of cooperation, such as by having a bar where making a purchase also gives all your teammates that drink too. The game also has the incredible "Rock And Stone" button. You hit the button (the V key by default), and your dwarf shouts "Rock And Stone!", or a similar voice line. This may not sound like much, but it actually does a lot: It gives the community a rallying cry, and it can be used in basically any situation you want to celebrate or otherwise show positivity towards (such as greeting a new dwarf that joins you on a mission). This button, in addition to a laser pointer for pinging things and a "Come over here" button, are basically all the tools you need to effectively communicate with your fellow dwarves. In other words, this is one of the few co-op games where you can confidently play without a mic, as it's actually very, very rare for anyone to use one (though it is technically still an option). When players do need to communicate something else, they often choose to do it through the text chat instead (it just feels right for this game, for some reason!) Even then, the most often uses of the chat box are saying "r" or "r?" (used as shorthand for "ready" and "ready?" respectively), and "GG" after a mission has been completed. There's also a saying both in-game and in the community that people tend to play by: "Leave no Dwarf Behind". Even if a team could have a better chance of escaping by just hopping on the escape pod and leaving the player who got lost and downed half a cave system away to their demise, they'll often instead fight their way back to that player, revive them, and make a mad dash back to the pod as a team. This is true even on one particular type of mission where the drill-robot you escort throughout it has their head pop off at the end: most teams will take the time to look for where the head flew off to, pick it up, and take it with them on the escape pod, despite the only rewards for doing so being that you can see it on the mission end screen and at the HUB world until your next mission. Overall, for the most part, an awesome community that's been far kinder than those I've seen in many other co-op games.

Overall, I highly recommend this game, especially if you like any other co-op swarm-fighting games like L4D2 or Payday 2.

Have you ever played [i]PAYDAY 2[/i] and thought "Man, this is fun, but... I wish the devs stopped their various scummy business practices, that I didn't need to get the latest of many DLC's to keep up with my teammates, or heck, even need to get DLC's to get non-cosmetic items at all!" Have you ever played a game with a battle pass and thought "This system would be neat and all, but I wish I didn't need to play constantly just to get everything before the season ended, and I wish there was a way to get stuff from past seasons so I didn't have to feel like I'm forced to play out of FOMO." I had both these issues before playing DRG (Deep Rock Galactic), but now I'm happy as a Dwarf that's been offered free beer! Deep Rock Galactic is a fun co-op game where you and up to 3 other dwarves team up to complete missions on the planet Hoxxes. A certain amount of these randomly-generated missions are available at any given time, and the selection refreshes every 30 minutes with new missions. There's a lot of things keeping these missions interesting every time you play them. There are several possible mission types, with several possible secondary objectives, and a variety of possible biomes (each with unique traits and features) the mission can take place in. The cave system in each mission is procedurally generated and given both "complexity" and "length" scales from 1-3 each. In addition, the game has a variety of random events, creatures, and rare ores that have a chance of appearing in each mission, and each mission can have up to 3 mutators on it (up to 2 that make the mission more difficult and 1 that has a beneficial effect). There are a variety of possible mutators, and those that have more difficulty-increasing mutators (or "hazards") award higher bonuses. On top of all that, there's the variety in team composition: There can be up to four dwarves in a team, each can be one of four different possible classes, each of which has several options for their gear, most of which have several different possible upgrade combinations (they can have one upgrade from each "tier"), and the primary and secondary can also have one of several different possible overclocks, which could potentially either slightly modify the guns' stats or severely alter how it's utilized in the first place! And on top of all that, each dwarf can have up to 3 passive and 2 active traits, and you can save several of these loadouts if you want to swap between them. Overall, all these possible options mean there's a lot of variety each time you play, especially when you play in public lobbies. Speaking of public lobbies, DRG has one of the friendliest and most unique communities I've ever come across in a multiplayer game. While there still is the rare troll once in a blue moon, those are extremely few and far between. There are several aspects of the game that help contribute to this; Firstly, the game gives everyone the rewards for each mission, so there are very few (if any) ways to benefit from being selfish in this game. The hub world also helps foster a sense of cooperation, such as by having a bar where making a purchase also gives all your teammates that drink too. The game also has the incredible "Rock And Stone" button. You hit the button (the V key by default), and your dwarf shouts "Rock And Stone!", or a similar voice line. This may not sound like much, but it actually does a lot: It gives the community a rallying cry, and it can be used in basically any situation you want to celebrate or otherwise show positivity towards (such as greeting a new dwarf that joins you on a mission). This button, in addition to a laser pointer for pinging things and a "Come over here" button, are basically all the tools you need to effectively communicate with your fellow dwarves. In other words, this is one of the few co-op games where you can confidently play without a mic, as it's actually very, very rare for anyone to use one (though it is technically still an option). When players do need to communicate something else, they often choose to do it through the text chat instead (it just feels right for this game, for some reason!) Even then, the most often uses of the chat box are saying "r" or "r?" (used as shorthand for "ready" and "ready?" respectively), and "GG" after a mission has been completed. There's also a saying both in-game and in the community that people tend to play by: "Leave no Dwarf Behind". Even if a team could have a better chance of escaping by just hopping on the escape pod and leaving the player who got lost and downed half a cave system away to their demise, they'll often instead fight their way back to that player, revive them, and make a mad dash back to the pod as a team. This is true even on one particular type of mission where the drill-robot you escort throughout it has their head pop off at the end: most teams will take the time to look for where the head flew off to, pick it up, and take it with them on the escape pod, despite the only rewards for doing so being that you can see it on the mission end screen and at the HUB world until your next mission. Overall, for the most part, an awesome community that's been far kinder than those I've seen in many other co-op games. Overall, I highly recommend this game, especially if you like any other co-op swarm-fighting games like L4D2 or Payday 2.