Rogue Core will be an amazing game in a year

Deep Rock Galactic: Rogue Core surprised me. This is no Deep Rock Galactic 2, and purely aesthetically it feels more polished than you'd expect from an early access game. The premise is simple. You are part of a team of four dwarves (each with their own class, the Falconer being my favorite thanks to the awesome falcon drone) who are tasked with digging into the 'Rogue Core' to mine a mineral called Expenite and closing the Void Gate at its rotten center.

This is a roguelike with meaningful individual runs and meta progression for your character with each attempt. There are upgrades, big guns, and a cacophony of terrible enemies to fight. Essentially, this is a good time. But the game is clearly not over.

I've now played for 20 hours and am pretty deep into Rogue Core itself, and I'm starting to feel that the experience is becoming quite repetitive. The initial appeal of discovering new combos and interacting with a world you've always enjoyed starts to wear thin in a way it never did after a few hundred hours in the original DRG.

If you're still on the fence about Rogue Core, wait for a few big updates to flesh out the content and let the Ghost Ship Games team figure out exactly how this new take on the roguelike genre will work.

Plenty of dwarven charm

A Rogue Core character sporting goggles and a big beard.

Even if you don't like some of the game's core mechanics, which I'll talk about in a moment, there's no denying that Rogue Core is really fascinating. Level and character design are paramount in Deep Rock Galactic, with lots of great details like a jukebox in the lobby you can dance to and plenty of emotes to boot. I liked that basically every time you start a new run with three other random dwarves, everyone takes a seat in the drop pod. I'd like to start a little petition for Ghost Ship to actually add some animations for sitting here. Please and thank you.

The game's current biomes, which change as you delve deeper into the core, are visually distinct and mechanically interesting. Frozen caves and poisonous swamps are difficult to live in, dark and gloomy. Leeches grab you from the ceiling and emerge from hollow holes in the slimy cave walls you're crawling through. It's all absolutely disgusting and immersive. I'd like to see biomes added in future updates.

Some key frustrations

A lot of player feedback so far seems to be focused on two key elements of Rogue Core: level timers and shared upgrade 'negotiation'. The level timer determines how long each depth level lasts. It is set to approximately 10 minutes. I can understand the frustration with the timer since it puts a lot of pressure on you each time it runs, but I personally like it. This keeps the rounds tight and means you have to prioritize certain aspects, especially on higher difficulties. For example, you need to secure a workbench but skip the event to get to the elevator before all hell breaks loose. As the timer begins to run out, the game begins to pound you with wave after wave of exponentially more powerful enemies until you are completely overwhelmed.

In terms of upgrading negotiations, yes. It can be frustrating for allied players to take necessary upgrades as an integral part of their build. But who have you actually played with? Since I'm running an electric build, I've found that the player base is generally very communicative and understanding if they want electric upgrades. Of course, your companions may get legendary upgrades before you, but this is just part of the natural limitations implemented into the game's design. I think shared upgrades might remove a bit of player agency, but I still don't think it's that big of a problem. If you object to any of this, get your friend group involved.

This shouldn't necessarily be viewed as a negative, and players should give the game a bit more time until they begin to understand why the limitations actually make the experience more engaging. You'll need to think more carefully about your choices, builds, and how your team is structured.

The negative from the player base so far is that most of these criticisms have already been shared with the team through extensive playtesting. Some players played the game for dozens of hours before it went into early access. A quick look at the game's subreddit shows that feedback on timers and shared upgrades have been openly discussed for months.

In an Early Access developer post, Ghost Ship Games confirmed that the studio is exploring ways to balance these two aspects, including re-rolling for upgrades and adjusting timer lengths. But I hope we can stay true to the spirit of the design here.

Overall, Rogue Core is no replacement for the original Deep Rock Galactic, especially in its current state. That said, there's something very cool here, and I hope to see it continue to expand throughout the year. There are more weapons, more upgrades, more interesting stat upgrades for your characters (the 'get x more armor' thing is over in video games) and more interesting events during your run. Then I think something special will happen.