DEEP ROCK GALACTIC

Developer Ghost Ship Games Publisher Coffee Stain Publishing Format PC, Xbox One Release 2018

With its pastel-shaded alien landscapes built of voxels, there’s a whiff of No Man’s Sky to Deep Rock

Galactic, though we’ll admit No Dwarf’s Gun doesn’t quite have the same ring to it. This is a cooperative shooter for up to four players who, as employees of the titular interplanetary mining company, are dispatched to the outer reaches of the galaxy to colonise Hoxxes IV, a new planet which, while rich in valuable minerals, is highly dangerous. That, as you might have guessed, requires guns, but there are gadgets too, such as launchers that embed concrete platforms into walls to aid traversal. Alternatively, you could just blast your way through the fully destructible cave systems. Combat is classbased, punchy and of the outsized insect variety: as players empty chamber after chamber into a horde of spiders flooding out of an enormous nest, there’s a distinct, welcome whiff of the Earth Defense Force games. Earth Defense Dwarf? Nah, we guess not.