Deep Rock Galactic is an excellent first person shooter with a marked emphasis on cooperative gameplay. With its procedurally-generated environments and its brilliantly designed player classes, proper co-op and team coordination are favored, as well as a creative and intelligent use of the tools at your disposal. You have the means to tackle all the challenges the game throws at you if you work together as a team, and there’s plenty of them waiting for you in the higher difficulties.


- Very well polished gameplay for a game made by a small indie company.

- Great low-poly 3D artstyle, a pretty cool and uncommon aesthetic.

- The game size is incredibly small for a 3D game, only around 3 GB.

- Fantastic co-op gameplay. All 4 classes feel very different and synergize brilliantly with each other. They all have their limitations that can be countered by correctly interacting with another class. This includes combat, cave traversal, resource gathering and the completion of objectives.

- Even though each class has specific roles, you can vary their playstyle quite a bit with the use of different combinations of weapons / mods / overclocks / perks.

- Movement and cave traversal are very fluid and seamless, which is surprising for a game set in procedurally-generated environments.

- Combat in general is extremely fun, varied and surprisingly in-depth when you take into account all the RPG elements the game has, especially with the synergistic interactions between some weapon mods and some overclocks. This allows you to create very interesting, fun and effective builds.

- The bug enemies are very well designed. There are many variations and most of them are disgusting. This helps in building the illusion of a real ecosystem. They’re also quite dangerous and fun to fight against in the higher difficulties.

- The destructible and procedurally-generated environments provide a hefty challenge and variation to the caves. This is also accentuated with all the different biomes and mission types. There’s also more variation in the form of randomly spawning mini-bosses, machine events and secret stashes containing minerals and cosmetics. Fantastic replayability.

- Great soundtrack that complements the gameplay and ambiance beautifully, from dark brooding ambient tracks, to more melodic ambient pieces, as well as explosive bangers for bug swarms and escape sequences. It’s also heavily retro synth inspired for all of you 80’s fans.

- Absolutely superb audio design. All items, tools, weapons, enemies have unique, recognizable sounds. Weapons sound meaty and punchy, they almost make you physically feel the recoil. All bugs have different sounds. If you take the time to learn them you can recognize threats way before they arrive, like noticing the rumbling steps and roar of a deadly Bulk Detonator. You can even hear the faint pulsing of some minerals through the walls.

- It can be very fun as a casual game when playing on Hazard 3, but it’s also extremely engaging in the higher difficulties like Hazard 5 or the Elite Deep Dives, where you really need to know what you are doing if you want to survive.

- It’s surprisingly enjoyable to play solo, due to how polished the gameplay and the atmosphere are. Also, the AI companion Bosco is very handy and likeable.

- The setting is pretty unique, like a blend of high tech sci-fi space exploration with medieval dwarves mining and fighting with crude and primitive gear. It reminds me of the first Alien movie, where characters are common working people, doing what seems like a basic cargo transport job, but done in a high tech space ship.

- The dwarves have so much charm and are incredibly fun to listen to. They constantly trash each other, troll their boss and complain how his job is much easier than theirs, they whine about how the company needs to invest in better equipment, they cheer and make beer toasts to their success, survival, wealth and to their fallen comrades.

- The developers of DRG so far have proven to be extremely caring and attentive to the community. There’s no paywall on any gameplay content, only cosmetic items. No microtransactions, only optional cosmetic DLCs which are used to further fund the development of the game. Official mod support is also a great plus. Most importantly, the vast majority of the content updates have been of very high quality, especially Rival Incursion, which introduced a brand new enemy faction with great design, a very elaborate and complex new mission, 4 new weapons with interesting mechanics and a free seasonal cosmetic tree / unlocks, all for free.



- Due to the procedurally-generated nature of the caves and countless random factors, you can occasionally end up in some extremely lethal and unfair situations when the wrong type of geometry meets the wrong type of enemies. But, in general, it’s not too common and you usually end up laughing it up because of how ridiculous these uncommon cave sections are. And for the veterans, they can be considered interesting challenges to overcome.

- Some random mutators are very annoying, such as Volatile Guts, Haunted Cave or Elite Threat. When you get a bad combo it can make some missions excruciatingly difficult to complete in Hazard 5, especially if you are playing solo.

- The game still lacks a bit of mission variety, having only 8 mission types, a few being very similar to others. Some are not too enjoyable at all, like Salvage Operation (IMO). But this is slowly improving, since the new mission type (Industrial Sabotage) is fantastic.

- The game lacks optimization in some areas. Having too many lights, particle effects and bug corpses can tank your frames considerably. Also, there seems to be an issue with ice particle effects. If you get too close to a frozen bug and shatter it, your framerate will take a huge dip and your game will look like a slideshow. Try DirectX 11 or 12 in the launch options to see which one runs better in your setup. Also, try to disable Ansel (NVIDIA) and the Steam overlay if you're having stuttering issues.


- The space rig is a fun player hub but it definitely needs some activities to allow the players to interact more with each other and with the building itself. Things like the long-requested shooting range for build testing purposes, as well as more interactive and competitive games would be very welcome. Something like a company mess hall where dwarves gather and eat could also potentially be a great addition. Additionally, completing achievements or different challenges / feats should add small décor items to the space rig, like the head of Doretta the drilldozer once you rescue it. This would be similar to PAYDAY 2’s safe house.

- Some endgame content, specifically the weapon overclocks (special weapon mods that can drastically change how a weapon functions), have an artificially-limited weekly supply to prevent people from unlocking them too quickly. The problem is that the unlocking of these items is almost completely randomized, so it can take hundreds of hours just to unlock a specific overclock that you want to use. At least you can’t get duplicates, so even when you get something bad, you know you won’t get it again. Even though I’m not too fond of this, I understand that the devs do it to keep people interested in the game, so I’m not that against it. It is definitely a considerably long grind though.



So, to conclude, DRG is one of the best co-op experiences you can get. If you buy it on sale, it’s dirt cheap and since none of the DLCs add any gameplay content, calling it a bargain is understating it. It’s got the charm, replayability, polish and depth to potentially keep you interested for a very long time, especially if you have a group of friends to play with.

That’s it lads. Thank you for reading and remember to always ROCK AND STONE!

Pathologic 2 is an incredible achievement in the world of video games and I don’t say this lightly. It’s a first person survival horror game in which you have to save a town from a deadly plague, while trying to solve a mystery, as well as overcoming impossible odds to survive and see another day. It will teach you to own up to your mistakes and learn from them. Also, don’t forget, the clock is always ticking...



• The game is a constant fight for survival. You’ll be forced to do horrific things to get by and attempt to save the town from the plague. It becomes almost unbearable at times, which shows that the devs succeeded in creating an organic form of horror that stems directly from the game’s mechanics. Furthermore, the game constantly evolves and changes to get you off balance again, right at the moment when you think to yourself “I got this in the bag”. The Town actually feels like a real, breathing, hostile place thanks to all of this.

• The concept of a game based on a limited timer is brilliant since it forces the player to plan ahead and try to decipher which objectives may or may not be useful to them. It’s a constant balancing act between spending time on trying to take care of others, trying not to die, trying to solve a mystery as well as save the town itself. You won’t be able to see everything, complete everything, save everyone. Because of this, the game has excellent replay value.

• The mind map is a very refined take on the classic journal mechanic from other similar games. It writes down almost all of the relevant information you gather from completing quests, which is a godsend with such a complex and bizarre world. You can also try to tell if different quest lines are related and could potentially reveal useful information as a whole thanks to the intuitive layout. It’s simply genius.

• Characters are brilliantly designed and written. Their models, facial animations, voice acting, emotions and biased opinions make them feel like real people. You can get easily attached to them, which makes saving them from the plague a very rewarding feat.

• Graphics are surprisingly good for an indie game. There's plenty of expertly used effects like color temperature / tone changes, gorgeous water reflections, great particle work, dynamic shadows and the like. It’s very clean and realistic even if it’s not hyper detailed.

• The game’s visual design is spectacular, mixing an industrial age aesthetic with elements of a tribal steppe culture. All of that is wrapped up in a theatrical presentation that allows the creators to tell the story in unconventional ways, with constant 4th wall breaks and so on. The game’s UI is great as well, very stylish and polished. Impressive for an indie game with a limited budget.

• The story itself is also brilliant. It deals with themes such as death, sacrifice, discrimination, mass hysteria, man’s connection to nature, the fear of the unknown, following the legacy of your ancestors, maturing as a person and tradition vs. progress, just to name a few.

• The sound design and ambience are phenomenal. The immersion they create is so good that I could compare it to classic examples like the Metroid Prime series. I often found myself playing for 4 hours straight as if it was nothing.

• The soundtrack is also fantastic. It’s a mix of tribal and dark electronic music which complements the setting and story perfectly. You have so many varied emotions and moods with tracks like Plague Awake Here, Darkness, Twyrine, Shaman from the Downtown and Disappearing. Also, the track used in the Abattoir section (Scorn 2) is astonishingly terrifying.



• Constant stutters and freezes when crossing invisible loading zones. You can alleviate these and boost your FPS by modifying the "boot.config" file in: C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Pathologic\Pathologic_Data so that it has these exact two lines:

• No cloud save backups. I don’t know how the devs missed this, but always try to back up your saves or you may risk losing an entire playthrough:
(C:\Users\*YourUserName*\AppData\LocalLow\Ice-Pick Lodge\Pathologic 2\Saves)

• First and third person animations are often janky and unpolished. NPCs can start jittering when they run into solid objects. Some animations seem like they were recorded at a low frame rate and lack interpolation. Lip sync on a few characters can break completely (Aspity in my case).

• Enemy AI is exploitable. They can get stuck on solid objects and other NPCs, they can get stunlocked indefinitely with light attacks and you can easily avoid the vast majority of fights by going inside buildings.

• Stealth backstabs deal way too much damage, letting you easily farm bandits to some degree. You can drastically alter the game’s economy to your favor and diminish the intended difficulty. At least the game compensates this by making combat extremely risky in general, because if you get stunned, you can easily get killed. Also, if you’re fighting more than one opponent at the same time, it’s basically a death sentence unless you use a well maintained firearm or you have enough stamina to escape.

• Random NPCs lack visual variation, breaking the immersion to some degree. However, all of the variants themselves are very well made.

• The game never consistently specifies when time is actually paused. One would assume that all menus do but a few don’t, like the Alembic/Brewery interfaces, leading to wasted time.



- Play on the intended difficulty (Imago), throw yourself into the deep end and do your best to survive despite all of the variables stacked against you. Only lower the difficulty if you find it impossible to progress. Give in to the suffering, do anything to survive even if it’s ugly. The game is an exploration in selfishness and desperation. That’s where the immersion stems from.

- Avoid reading guides that spoil the mechanics or explain meta strategies. Part of the horror comes from the uncertainty of not knowing how efficiently you are playing.

- Complete the goals that your own internal logic suggests that may be useful if you are short on time. Some quests don’t help you advance the main plot and only serve to add lore and character to the people of The Town (they are fantastic though, complete them if you can). Others can have negative outcomes that will hinder your progress, so choose wisely and try to never reload previous saves to undo these decisions.

- Use your time carefully as it’s a limited resource, and don’t stress over missing things. The story is meant to be told in glimpses and you’ll still be able to get to the end unless you miss the most important plot points. Remember that missing things because you have to tend to your survival meters is intentional and it only serves to heighten the immersion. The Town is a very dangerous place, surviving in itself is a feat.

- Don’t save scum to cheat death, own up your mistakes and when the game smacks you down, again just roll with it. Don’t feel discouraged if you die constantly, the devs expected this and you’ll be rewarded with some very interesting conversations. If you are caught in a death loop you can always recuperate if you load back a few saves, as long as you realize how to change your strategy.



Pathologic 2 is truly remarkable. I’m overjoyed that the devs were actually able to finish it with the support of hundreds of people via Kickstarter and that I got to play it. It’s one of the best gaming experiences I’ve ever had in my life. Hats off to Ice-Pick Lodge for creating such a masterpiece.