Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor is Fine. It’s exactly what it says on the box. It’s a Vampire Survivors-like that uses literally every asset, mechanic, voice clip, etc from Deep Rock Galactic. Gameplay is exactly what you think it is: you pick your dwarf class, pick your sub-specialty, pick your DRG biome, and you get dumped in a 5-level mission to kill a bunch of glyphids. Each class starts with a base weapon and Bosco, and on every level-up you pick from 3 perks that increase damage, decrease cool-downs, increase move speed, increase crit chance / damage, etc. At set level milestones you unlock a new weapon – up to four – which are all lifted directly from DRG. Every time you upgrade a specific weapon 5 times you get a choice of applying one of two overclocks, which will be a beefy upgrade that might add like 100% damage at the cost of reload speed, or might just add an element on top of your base damage.

Each level plays out identically. You get a random secondary goal (Collect Morkite, Caps or Blooms), and then just start running around killing glyphids and gaining xp. Halfway through the level there’ll be a random-spawn resupply drop that likely has to be mined out to “clear” the drop-zone. The resupply is nice because it gives a choice of 3 artifacts and also insta-kills a pretty big area of glyphids, so you get an artifact, kill a bunch of threats, and get a bunch of xp to scoop up. Once you kill enough glyphids an elite spawns. Kill the elite and you’ve got 30 seconds to reach the drop-ship to proceed to the next zone. The only real difference is that on the 5th level you don’t get a secondary goal, and instead just have a beefy boss to kill.

Progression-wise, there’s four classes to unlock, three sub-classes to unlock per class (which alter starting weaponry / scaling), a ton of different weapons to unlock (which aren’t limited by class), and a bunch of different gear and artifacts.

…but it isn’t really good. It feels like an asset-flip, it’s just that the assets are really good ones from a much better game. The moment-to-moment gameplay is way too same-y, the different biomes barely matter, and you completely lose the magical thing that made DRG work, which is the multiplayer.

For what it is, it’s fine. It’s a budget-title, it’s in Game Pass, and it’s very reasonably priced for what it is. I just don’t see myself sinking a ton of hours into it, and probably wouldn’t have gone out of my way to buy it had it not shown up in Game Pass. As much as I love DRG, this isn’t for me, but hey maybe if you’re a hardcore Survivors-Genre-Enjoyer this will scratch an itch for you.