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Watching the auto-shooter genre evolve in DEEP ROCK GALACTIC: SURVIVOR
It's always fascinating when you get to watch a new game genre emerge and evolve – over my life in gaming I’ve gotten to see it with the MOBA, battle royale, tower defence and more. For the last few years, the defining example has been auto-shooters – a genre so new, in fact, that we’ve not even really settled on that name yet.
What I’m talking about is Vampire Survivors-likes. The indie hit enjoyed huge success, and spawned countless imitators, thanks to the simple format, other developers have been able to put out their own spins on the genre in record time, giving it a kind of hyper-accelerated evolution.
I could list great auto-shooters for days – favourites of mine include Renfield, and 20 Minutes Til Dawn – but for me the one that’s leading the pack, and helping the genre feel more developed and complete, is Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor.
ROCK AND STONE!
Spinning off from beloved co-op shooter Deep Rock Galactic, Survivor takes the same core concept – space dwarves mining for gold on an alien world while hordes of bugs descend on them – and perfectly reframes it for a top-down roguelike experience.
ROBIN VALENTINE
THIS MONTH Killed more bugs than a fumigation tent.
ALSO PLAYED Dragon’sDogma 2, Balatro
Destructible stone that you can dig through but most bugs cannot allows you to tactically shape the environment to your benefit; secondary objectives and valuable mineable resources give you goals to frantically chase beyond just battling bugs; supply drops that offer powerful buffs but that can only land if you clear the area beneath them encourage you into tense and risky encounters. All of it adds a much greater dept
