If you’re one of those people who enjoys playing games with other people well, I’ve got some news for you about people you can play games with. Community members over on the RPS Discord server pick a game each month to play together. They’ve chosen co-op dwarf FPS Deep Rock Galactic this month and have managed to rope in a member of Ghost Ship Games to play along too. You can check in on the server this month to join them for cooperative shooty mining combat.

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Oh dear, is it that time already? Yes indeed, the Steam Autumn Sale has arrived, bringing the seasonal discounts on thousands of games. Awards season is upon as as well, so they’ve opened up nominations for the yearly Steam Awards. You can vote and reap the discounts from now until December 1st at 10am PST / 6pm GMT.

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As is Dwarven tradition, the intersteller halflings at Deep Rock Galactic just won’t stop digging. Alien bugs or no, there’s gold down there – so grab a shovel and get in the hole. This week, developers Ghost Ship Games revealed their plans for the next few months of mining n’ shooting, bringing new biomes, classes, jobs and objectives to the beardiest blokes in deep space.

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I have seven seconds to bypass twenty feet of sheer rock face to reach a subterranean escape pod before it propels itself back up through the planet’s surface, leaving my dwarven engineer trapped in a network of dark tunnels teeming with screeching alien insects. After a seeming eternity of desperate scrambling, I’ve made it to the cavern containing the escape pod, my heart sinking as I see how high up it is. My platform-creating gun has a single shot left, and I’ve nowhere near enough time to dig my way up. It’s then I spot it: A geyser venting trails of steam that can propel my dwarf into the air. I take the punt. It lifts me halfway up. My final, desperate platform shot does the rest. I leave with a shiny haul of gems, and roughly two seconds to spare.

The high level concept for this game is Left 4 Dead meets Minecraft, both undeniably influential games that, personally, I don’t have much enthusiasm for. Let me tell you why Deep Rock Galactic – a game that the phrase ‘more than the sum of its parts’ could have been invented for – is an absolute gem.

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Those dang Dwarves, they’ve only gone and dug too deep again. Ghost Ship Games’ intergalactic halflings have been steadily mining out treasure and blasting aliens for a solid year and a half now, but it looks like the endgame is upon them. Deep Rock Galactic has expanded once again, bringing new kit, new combs, and a tough new game mode for hardened miners. What do you do when you’ve hollowed out all there is to dig? Well, I suppose you can always make a Deep Dive into parts unknown.

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Co-op space dwarf sim shooter Deep Rock Galactic is free to try out for the weekend, celebrating an eventful full year in early access. Ghost Ship Games have poured a lot of love and effort into this odd blend of Minecraft and Left 4 Dead, adding a new introductory campaign, improving single-player and adding scads of new caverns, monsters and guns since its debut. It’s come along so well that they reckon they’ll be increasing the price near the end of the month, but players can still get in cheap if they like what they play free now. I recommend giving it a try, even if you play solo.

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Despite only debuting a few months ago, it feels like forever since I’ve played any of Ghost Ship Games’ co-op space-dwarf mine n’ shooter Deep Rock Galactic. While I’ve been absent, the developers certainly haven’t, as its 14th major update just rolled out. Jokingly named Feature Creep, this new version adds new environment variety, enemy types, gameplay features and – most importantly – accurately modelled beard physics for your dwarven mining crew. The developers also reckon this is a great point for new players to start out.

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This is The Mechanic, where Alex Wiltshire invites developers to discuss the difficult journeys they underwent to make the best bits of their games. This time, Deep Rock Galactic [official site].

The moment Deep Rock Galactic took my imagination was when I saw its dwarf miners throwing flares into the inky blackness of a cave in its E3 trailer. Few games do darkness, and here was a game trading in it. As the flares fell they lit up the faceted low-poly walls of the cavern, revealing what lay ahead: ore to mine, pitfalls to fall into, twisting passageways to get lost in, and swarms of alien enemies. It got right to the core of exploration, capturing the mystery and adventure of blundering into spaces where no one has been before. In short, darkness leans right into everyone s favourite fantasy of being a dwarven miner in space. (more…)

Someone brought up an interesting point in the comments the last time we posted about Deep Rock Galactic: given the lack of any reference points, how do we know these space dwarves are actually dwarves? They could be towering monstrosities that make us humans look like dormice. But then, what does it actually mean to be a dwarf? Rather than being a matter of size, could it be about achieving a certain state of mind? An outlook? A philosophy?

You could spend this evening pondering those important questions, but if you really want you could play the game instead: Deep Rock Galactic’s blend of co-op mining and bug blasting is now available to everyone willing to brave the early access rock face. I had a quick go with it a couple of weeks ago, which means I can now bestow the game with a tentative thumbs up.

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Whether deep under-mountain or out in the void of space, Dwarves are one of the most stable of fantasy archetypes. They love their drink, they love their gems, and when given the chance they’ll always dig too greedily and too deep. You’ll get to do all of this in upcoming co-op shooter/mining expedition Deep Rock Galactic, which looks to blend Minecraft-ish spelunking with Left 4 Dead style procedural combat encounters, all wrapped up in a neat semi-low-fi art style.

While the final release of the game is still some ways off, developers Ghost Ship Games will be opening throwing open its doors to brave bearded pioneers later this month, with the first public build available via Steam Early Access on February 28th.

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