Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor
A lone dwarf, a drill and a few guns that fire by themselves: that is the starting kit in Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor. Aiming is handled for the player. Positioning is not, and neither are the upgrade choices that decide whether the dwarf outlasts a growing crowd of bugs in the caves of Hoxxes IV.
Between kills the dwarf mines resources, spends XP on a new upgrade each time the bar fills, and heads for the drop pod before the dive runs out of road. It is a standalone spin-off of the co-op shooter Deep Rock Galactic, rebuilt around short survivor-like runs, escalating swarms and a boss at the bottom of every dive.
Top 3 Reasons to Play
Classes that change the shape of a run. The Scout's Recon mod rewards dodging, with a successful dodge briefly boosting movement and reload speed. The Engineer's Maintenance Worker mod works the opposite way: most of the damage comes from turrets placed on the ground rather than from guns in hand.
Daily and weekly challenges on top of the normal dives. Three rotating formats sit alongside the regular missions:
- Vanguard Contracts: daily missions from Hazard 2 upward, each with a preset biome, class mod, starting weapon and mutators.
- Lethal Operations: weekly Hazard 4 and 5 runs where only the biome is fixed.
- Mutator Madness, an Anomaly Dive in which mutators are picked before every stage and some of them stay for the rest of the run.
A second life after the first Dreadnought. Endless Mode arrived as a free update and plays as a variant of the Elimination mission, while Mastery Milestones add long-term goals beyond the unlock ranks.
Story and Lore
Hoxxes IV is a scorched, tidally locked planet orbiting the blue star Creus. Its minerals are valuable and almost everything else about it is a threat: electromagnetic storms, gravitational anomalies, tectonic instability, seas of sulfuric acid and an aggressive ecosystem.
The dwarves are employees of Deep Rock Galactic, a mining corporation known for lax safety precautions and for paying large bonuses to anyone willing to go deeper. Survivor keeps that deadpan corporate tone in small details: an Employee Review Score grades every dive on kills, mining, objectives and speed, and one Magma Core mutator is named Bigger Bureaucracy.
There is no long narrative campaign to follow. Each dive plays as a single contract: descend, hit the objectives and get extracted with whatever was mined. The Dreadnought waiting at the end is the nearest thing to a story beat.
Gameplay and Mechanics
Weapons fire automatically. The player's job is positioning and upgrade choices, with mining fitted around both. In a standard dive there are five levels, each with a progress bar that triggers a Supply Drop, a swarm and an Elite objective. Level five swaps that for three Elite eggs and the Dreadnought. Killing the Elite or the Dreadnought starts a 30-second countdown to reach the drop pod, and missing it ends the run. Supply Drops carry Artifacts that help on later levels, and a pod dropped directly onto an Elite can kill it outright.
Bugs drop XP as blue cubes and pink stars, the stars being worth more, and every level-up offers a choice of upgrades that can be rerolled with Gold. A dwarf starts with one weapon and gains more at levels 5, 15 and 25, up to a maximum of four. A weapon that reaches level 12 qualifies for Overclocks, modifiers that change how it behaves at later milestones.
Resources are spent in two places:
- Gold and Nitra are spent in the shop between levels. Gold covers rerolls and a 50% heal, Nitra buys weapon upgrades, and whatever is left over disappears when the dive ends.
- Minerals such as Bismor, Croppa, Enor Pearl, Jadiz, Magnite and Umanite pay for permanent upgrades after the dive, like Heavy Bullets or Pocket Magnets. Two random types spawn on each level, and the upgrades apply to every class.
Missions vary by objective. Elimination and Escort Duty make up the baseline, while Egg Hunt has the dwarf dig up alien eggs and hand them to Bosco for delivery to a central cargo pod; delivering the final egg summons a Brood Nexus boss.
Terrain rules change from biome to biome. Crystalline Caverns is the default and the easiest. Magma Core brings damaging molten ground and plants that explode on approach. In Hollow Bough, regrowing vines can wall the dwarf in unless Mining is high enough to cut through. Salt Pits links falling stalactites to red crystals. Azure Weald offers healing crystals and launch membranes in place of most Red Sugar, and Glacial Strata, introduced with the Heavy Duty Expansion, turns the floor slippery and wires icicle traps to shatterable ice. Biomes beyond the first open through Biome Points, each one has five Hazard Levels, and the higher levels stack on mutators.
Outside the dive, a Gear menu takes six equipment types: armor, chips, tools, gadgets, canisters and weapon mods. Each piece has its own stats and rarity up to Legendary, and gear can be upgraded.
Characters and Factions
The main character decision is the dwarf's job. Each of the four original classes has three class mods, and the second and third unlock at class ranks 9 and 18. Scout offers Classic, Recon and Sharp Shooter. The remaining classes:
- Gunner: Weapons Specialist, Juggernaut and Heavy Gunner. Juggernaut trades weapon range for armor and health, while Heavy Gunner boosts range and reload speed for heavy weapons.
- Engineer: Maintenance Worker, Tinkerer and Demolitionist. Tinkerer is built for levelling quickly, and Demolitionist for grouping enemies with grenades and rockets.
- Driller: Foreman, Interrogator and Strong Armed. Foreman stacks mining speed, Interrogator leans on fire and acid with extra status effect damage, and Strong Armed throws axes and grenades.
Two paid expansions each supply a class. The Heavy Duty Expansion contributes the Demolisher, who drives a weaponized industrial vehicle called the Rockdozer and crushes enemies under its wheels, with the mods Contractor, Gridrunner and Operator. The Knockout Expansion introduces the melee-focused Brawler. Both include 11 new weapons that other classes can reach through the game's tag system.
Bosco, an All-Purpose Drone in the original game, hovers beside the dwarf and shoots the nearest enemies without being told to. Chip gear rewrites his attack: acid, cryo, electrical, fire, kinetic and plasma versions each swap in a different weapon.
The opposition is Hoxxes IV's wildlife. Grunts and Slashers charge in melee, Acid Spitters back off and fire from range, orange Exploders run in and detonate, and Praetorians tunnel through terrain to reach the dwarf. Mactera swarm over Hollow Bough, Q'ronar Younglings bounce around Salt Pits, and passive Lootbugs and Huuli Hoarders drop Gold, Nitra and sometimes crates if they are killed before they flee.
Every boss traces back to the Dreadnought:
- Glyphid Dreadnought: the final boss of a dive, which leaps, funnels the dwarf with rock pillars and spawns swarms from egg attacks.
- Dreadnought Twins: Lacerator fights in melee and Arbalest fires fireballs. They share a health pool, and damaging both evenly stops them from healing.
- Dreadnought Empress: the boss of the Brood Harvest mission, an insectoid matriarch who spawns offspring to shield herself.
Editions
Edition names differ between storefronts. The base game covers the four original classes and the first five biomes, and later content is sold as DLC.
- Standard Edition: the base game on its own.
- Deluxe Edition: the base game plus the After Hours Pack and the Supporter Pack.
- Complete Edition: the base game plus the Heavy Duty Expansion.
Each piece of DLC is also available separately:
- Heavy Duty Expansion: the Demolisher class, Glacial Strata biome, Egg Hunt mission and 11 weapons.
- After Hours Pack: cosmetic outfits only: Slayer for the Scout, Fanboy for the Driller, Scientist for the Engineer and King for the Gunner.
- Supporter Pack: an optional add-on, also part of the Deluxe Edition.
- Knockout Expansion: the Brawler class, Sandblasted Corridors biome, Brood Harvest mission and 11 close-combat weapons.