Recent reviews by シ ᴳᵃᵐᵉʳ

If there’s a game that I gotta leave a review for, it’s this one. A lot of passion and care is put into this game, and that’s something hard to find in a lot of mainstream games nowadays. Everything from the very cooperative gameplay and the engagingly complex mission designs, to the phenomenal soundtrack and immersive sound design, to the characters of the game and their many quirky voice lines, to the smaller details like the many neat things found in our hub area, the Space Rig, the charming low-poly artstyle, to even the Miner’s Manual. It's the help section of the game, and its design is crafted in such a way reminiscent of physical game manuals, covering basically everything you need to know about the game with stylized instructions. Art direction and details aside though, this game embodies the very definition of fun.

The entire game itself emphasizes teamplay and cooperation, and builds upon it, especially with the many voicelines mentioning to leave no dwarf behind, and it honestly has the most wholesome community that I’ve ever seen, especially coming from other FPS games that are just about guaranteed to carry a high-strung, toxic crowd from within those playerbases. In my time playing this game, I’ve barely come across any toxic experiences, enough to count on one hand. A majority of the people are willing to help and cooperate with each other, like asking if everyone’s ready to progress the objective through typing “r” in the chat. Even failing missions is barely a big deal. Part of the fun in multiplayer is just sharing a beer and celebrating with your teammates at the Abyss Bar in the Space Rig! There are difficulties tailored for everyone, and there are options to host a lobby yourself, join others’ lobbies, set a friends’ only lobby, or to go completely solo, and you won’t be alone either! You’ll have the option to take an All-Purpose Drone, nicknamed Bosco, with you on your expedition. And he is quite literally all-purpose, as Bosco can do half of the work for you. Just ping an object, or objective, and he can mine, carry items, shine light, shoot enemies, revive, build and repair objectives, guard objectives, and so much more!

As you start a mission and send yourself into the depths of Hoxxes, you’ll find yourself in the many different and also very wonderfully crafted biomes that you’ll perform these missions in. Having many biomes available means you aren’t just surrounded by stone, but you can find yourself surrounded by ice, grass, sand, wood, or other organic material. And there’s even more than just enemies and minerals to expect too, as there is also plant life, fauna, and varying hazards present depending on where you are conducting your missions. The maps themselves are randomly generated and the entirety of the map is destructible, allowing you to shape the map however you’d like. The caverns are your sandbox.

Progression-wise, after every mission you complete, you’ll take home some credits, XP, and any acquired minerals. The minerals you find can be used at the loadout terminals to mod and upgrade your gear or at the shop to purchase something new for your wardrobe. And to those who love character creation or game fashion, there's a ton of customization available, leaving room for tons of unique combinations! There is a specific terminal to the left of the Drop Pod however, the Assignment terminal. It contains objectives where you must complete a set of missions to work towards the rewards offered by it. Rewards include weapons, cosmetics, materials, and unlocking promotions for the dwarves.

Promotions are where the progression truly starts. As you bring any of the dwarves up to level 25, you’ll have an opportunity to complete a promotion assignment for that class, unlocking the ability to promote your dwarf. The promotions act as a prestige system for the game. Alongside the promotions, you’ll unlock access to the Forge, Core Hunts, Deep Dives, Overclocks, and some other things, serving as a kind of endgame content. As you continue on playing the game, I highly recommend getting to this point as Overclocks drastically change how each class’ weapons work, allowing for lots of different playstyles to keep the game feeling fun and fresh.

As for the monetization of this game, the game only offers DLCs that are purely cosmetic and does not give any form of progression advancements. There is no “premium currency” for the game. With that, the game also includes its own battle pass system known as the Performance Pass. Just wait though! Even if you're tired of hearing about battle passes, don't let that turn you away! The Performance Pass system is completely free and does not require any real world purchases for any kind of "premium tier" cosmetics. Its structure is comprised of the standard tiered system but is also paired alongside a cosmetic tree. The Performance Passes are also not timegated in any way, and you are free to progress any Performance Passes from previous seasons as well, making all cosmetics and its contents obtainable as part of the natural progression of the game.

On the technical side of things, the game runs fairly well and most notably, it barely takes up any storage space, as the game’s file size is only 3 GB! That kind of file size is basically unheard of today with many AAA games taking upwards of 70+ GB on your drives, save for some older games or indie titles. If you are also one that enjoys modding games, the game includes official built-in modding support through Mod.io, allowing for client-sided ‘Verified’ mods, the gameplay-enhancing ‘Approved’ mods, and the ‘Sandbox’ mods. All mods can be changed on the splash screen menu before you enter the game, no need to dig into your file explorer to edit the mods. Because there is modding support, you may even find modded servers when looking through the server list. And just in case that you accidentally joined a modded server and had undesired changes made in your progression, the game also includes a save menu within the options tab, allowing you to revert to a previous cloud save.

This is an absurdly long review, yes, but again I just cannot recommend this game enough as there is just so much to like about it. You can also read the opinions from the many other reviewers around and see that there’s a good reason why this is among the top rated games on Steam. The game goes on sale constantly and is easily a great buy for your library. If you do end up getting the game, always be sure to Rock and Stone. See you in the caves.

We Fight, We Mine
For Rock and Stone