If Vampire Survivors is the king of the survivor-like genre, Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor is hungrily coming for that crown. Its time-based formula and weapon upgrade system offers thoughtful innovation in a space too heavily focused on infinite min-maxing.
The six-year-old “ROCK AND STONE” mantra of Deep Rock Galactic is cemented as a quotable fixture amongst players. As of 2025, it transcended its first-person roots and manifested itself within a Deep Rock game of another genre that’s just as addicting as the original’s gameplay loop. Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor is now available on the Nintendo Switch 2 and PS5, bringing the bullet heaven meets mining game from XBOX and mobile to all other platformers.
Many recent games have opted to adopt the roguelike/roguelite gameplay loop because of it being easy to pick up and fine to play in short bursts. poncle’s Vampire Survivors took things one step further by incorporating bullet heaven elements to that roguelike simplicity, all the while dangling a carrot in the form of min-maxing and game-breaking in front of players who dare to question a game’s framework. Since Vampire Survivors’ release on every gaming platform (including the Meta Quest!), many developers have attempted to recreate that adrenaline shot of gameplay addictiveness…with varying degrees of success. Funday Games, in collaboration with Ghost Ship Publishing, took Vampire Survivors’ formula and set it within the confines of Deep Rock Galactic’s universe.
Frankly, this attempt is one of the better bullet heaven implementations I’ve tried thus far. And it doesn’t use AI, either. As someone who has played quite a bit of Deep Rock Galactic, DRG: Survivor stays true to the Deep Rock thematic while giving it a simpler gameplay loop. If you’ve ever wanted to play a top-down bullet heaven version of Deep Rock Galactic, then its Survivor game will immediately quench that thirst of yours in ways you never thought you wanted.
What immediately won me over was DRG: Survivor’s character building and skill trees. Every level up gave me the opportunity to select from one of four stat-based upgrades. A level up screen could give me an array of options from choosing between a larger crystal pickup radius, increased mining speed, additional damage from one of my weapons, or a faster reload screen. After hitting specific level breakpoints, I could then select another weapon to add to my inventory, up to four weapons total for each run. Weapons could evolve after I had leveled them up a handful of times, dramatically changing their behavior or damage type.
All of this was contained and set within the Deep Rock universe I had already understood. I knew that mining was important and a critical element of playing Deep Rock. I could mine pathways through levels to entrap hordes of enemies, making it significantly easier for me to blow up a critical mass of them and pick up the experience gems left in their wake. I could also seek out secondary objectives and harvest them for bonus gold/experience, giving me a leg up for future waves of enemies. I couldn’t spend too much time on a level, though; after defeating the boss at the end of my level, I had to make it back to the Drop Pod to progress further. If I didn’t make it back in time…my run was over.
DRG: Survivor had me weigh options constantly. Weapon upgrades and loadouts were the first set of options I had to weigh; risking it for the biscuit (in this case, additional XP/currency) were the next level of thoughtful decisions. Weapon evolutions, assuming I had made it far enough in a run, were another set of decisions. These decisions, when taken together, prevented me from phoning it home on every new run. I wanted to get just a bit further and get just a bit stronger, just so I can see what I could find in each new level.
DRG: Survivor falls short in its variety and character, two spaces where poncle’s Vampire Survivors remains the current leader. On the character front, Survivor leans almost too heavily on character quotes and aligning with the existing Deep Rock lore without much of a payoff. Ghost Ship Games has spent years building up Deep Rock’s universe with seasonal events, silly easter eggs, and drip-feeding lore tidbits. Survivor feels like a missed opportunity in leaning into that existing IP and encouraging players to explore and uncover things to expand the Deep Rock universe. I appreciate the faithful representation of Deep Rock’s content, but Easter Eggs and other secrets would make the game feel just as deep (heh…) as the clear leader in this space.
Heck, aligning Survivor’s content with the base game’s current seasonal content would make the games feel like they’re better connected in a coherent fashion.
It’s hard not to compare Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor to Vampire Survivors because of how well it implemented mechanics. There’s something innately satisfying about vacuuming up a massive number of blue XP gems, even if that only results in one or two level ups. DRG: Survivor doesn’t attempt to emulate Vampire Survivors as a Temu knockoff, but those who play Vampire Survivors with its 100+ characters may feel like DRG: Survivor’s cast of 12 dwarves (four classes with three subclasses each) is lackluster in comparison.
It isn’t lackluster, don’t worry. DRG: Survivor instead focuses on different forms of bullet hell satisfaction, chief of which being its weapon upgrade system. Where Vampire Survivors’ base experience gives you an infinite plane of possibilities, DRG: Survivor sticks to Deep Rock Galactic’s core of mining stone, squashing bugs, and getting out ASAP. The upgrade paths in particular puts more emphasis on getting the most out of four core weapons.
If you want that Endless bullet heaven experience, it takes far less time to unlock it than it does in Vampire Survivors. Thank goodness for that.
Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor might be a weird choice to install on your Nintendo Switch 2 in the sense that you can already play it on your phone. You’ll probably be able to play it longer on your phone in a single sitting, too. While this specific version has support for the Switch 2’s mouse function and a handful of other performance tweaks, it can technically be played entirely using the Switch 2’s touchscreen. Yes, I played several rounds without using a Joy-Con altogether, and it was mostly smooth sailing. There were a couple of freezes, sure, but nothing that demonstrates that the game needs large scale optimization. If you’re on the fence about the game overall, this is a case where I’d recommend that you try the free demo on iOS or Android to see how it vibes with you. If you like it, that’s indication enough that you’ll get quite a bit of enjoyment out of the Nintendo Switch 2 version.
Will I keep playing DRG: Survivor on my Switch 2? Most likely, even if my Switch 2’s battery life is far worse than my phone’s. It’s one of those games that gets you hooked on a simple gameplay loop to the point where several hours of passed and it’s 4am. That hook to constantly unlock more, more, and more content is real.
If Vampire Survivors is the king of the survivor-like genre, Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor is hungrily coming for that crown. Its time-based formula and weapon upgrade system offers thoughtful innovation in a space too heavily focused on infinite min-maxing.
