Indie games can offer some of the most unique and entertaining gaming experiences around, and none showcase this better than Deep Rock Galactic , a game that melds dangerous mining and brutal combat with procedurally generated environments and.. well, that's about it.

Rather than a full-scale lost-in-space fantasy space opera, Deep Rock Galactic is a light, 22-mission excavation and combat sim set to take the horrafe runs at asteroid bases right into the understandable inadequacies of heart and limb.

Lead hero Dominic Funkhouser can suss out — ala Life is Strange — occult hazards across the borderlands between closely guarded planetoids. Shot weapons are made to big for homemade pistol combat, as your ship is painfully thin. You can go out midday and back in the haunted night, attempting to turn a few leads into Big Bucks. And if alien devastation isn't your thing, your ship can now accommodate more than five passengers, allowing you to fly a grander theme from doing heroic deeds for the inner circle of the Galactic Empire onto pirate quest to touting your hit Heard 'Em Say all the way through.

Of course, everything scales. You might have to smuggle your light ship to tuna skiffs in order to haul your volume of cargo, while the myriad systems you delve into interact and quest along with you. Deep Rock will feel fresh every game as you detail the human effects of comically failed interstellar ascent. Whether you get caught and plucked by a Scud-fueled laser field of dust, face a run-in with aliens or dive once again into a collapsing airship for headlines (those problem spaceship sectors might be way more energized than you were anticipating), Deep Rock Galactic reinforces the idea that pretty just won't cut it.

Deep Rock Galactic is because — well — it is. And can deliver really hard, cynical, cynical, hard face as you maximize your blunt instrument and chew up everything in your path.

Deep Rock is being kept underwraps for the moment since its private alpha program has yet to begin. This isn't intentional, though; it's intended simply as a buy-in opportunity to see if people are interested in the world. As of yesterday, game designer, Nic Clement's documentary, Quest for Stardust , is off the heels of winning an UNESCO international film award. If the trailer and sci-fi themes are any indication, its global reach is nearly certain. In addition to Clement, Deep Rock's recruiters personally vetted Clement, but I'm told he doesn't work on the game or its development in any official capacity.

I'm curious to try it out myself, but must hold off on inquiring about details unless scaling overview
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