Deep Rock Galactic: Rogue Core takes one of PC’s best co-op experiences to another genre

Co-Op (Resource) Extraction Ghost Ship hollowed out of an FPS asteroid is sinking a drill into a roguelite planet. The just-announced Deep Rock Galactic: Rogue Core is a clever piece of genre splicing, as one of his four dwarf miners investigates an alien world where “Core has gone rogue.” Masu. Just like the original Deep Rock Galactic we all loved, you’ll dig tunnels and battle creatures (exactly what kind is to be determined) while harvesting valuable ore. But this time, once you’ve loaded up enough cargo, you won’t be able to return to the ship. The only exit is down.

The planet in question is Hoxes IV, home to a mysterious substance called expenite. It was once an active mining site, but contact has now been lost. A team of Reclaimers must reactivate an old excavation site and bypass a strange substance called Greyt for further investigation. The teaser trailer mixes notes of Dead Space with a dash of Alien, and while it’s certainly a mix of raspberry and strawberry jam, it’s still an appealing spread.

Rogue Core began life as a Deep Rock Galactic game mode, the developer explains in a Steam post. “Ever since Deep Rock Gacular began seven years ago, we’ve felt that the core gameplay could work just as well in a roguelike/lite format,” it reads. “So we started the Prototype project as a new game mode within DRG. As the Prototype evolved, we realized it had even more potential, and this is what we wanted to do with open development and early access. We realized that it would be a great opportunity to get back to that mindset, and it became clear that creating it as an independent spin-off was the right choice for us.”

This spin-off shares a lot with the original game, including “traverse stools, weapon synergies, laser pointer shouts, and don’t forget the good old ‘Rock and Stone,'” but with new Roguelite construction is, yes, that. It’s not light and it changes the flow of the game. You unlock new guns and phase his suit during runs, but each run always starts with basic gear and abilities, gaining more powerful kit as you progress.

“In contrast to Deep Rock Galactic, where the difficulty is consistent from the start of the mission to the end of the mission, the difficulty increases significantly as you progress through the mission,” the developer adds. They also note “co-op play mechanics with a special focus on creating ‘team builds’ on the fly, rather than just four individual builds.”

Rogue Core is scheduled to enter early access in November 2024 after a series of closed alpha tests. Ghost Ship will likely be in early access for 18 to 24 months. Like the original Deep Rock Galatic, early access builds cost less than the final version. Sadly, Ghost Ship had to postpone the release of Deep Rock Gapractic’s Season 5 update to make room for the new game. Assuming everything goes according to plan, season 5 is expected to launch in June 2024.

This isn’t the only Deep Rock Galactic spinoff currently in the works. There’s also Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor. This is Vampire His Survivor, but deeper, rockier, and more galactic, with characters hammering ore nodes while automatically spewing projectiles at hordes of bogies. Deep Rock Survivor retains the main game’s extraction loop and procedurally generated areas, but with a single player focus. Want to swing a pickaxe in the just-released demo?