The iconic mining survival game Deep Rock Galactic, tackling one of the hottest genres of our times, in a brand new spin-off that launches on Game Pass. Ladies and gentlemen, the Dwarves go bullet heaven. This is the XboxEra review for Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor, tested on Xbox Series X!
We’ve found another survivor!
At the time of publishing this review, it’s the 17th of September, 2025, and this is no less than the third high-profile bullet heaven (or survivors-like, if you prefer) game on Xbox this month alone – with more to come in the upcoming weeks, in fact. The Norse-themed Jotunnslayer: Hordes of Hel and the undead-based Yet Another Zombie Survivors are now joined by the underground mining adventures of Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor.
It’s been in Early Access on PC for some time, and like many of its contemporaries, has decided to make the jump to consoles as well for its 1.0 release. This gorgeous 3D top-down title takes a lot of cues from the ins and outs of the bullet heaven genre, but it spins it into a unique experience. The player has to traverse multiple consecutive procedurally generated underground dungeons, trying to kill enough of the never-ending swarm of bug-like enemies to spawn the area’s boss – or bosses.
Getting through that challenge forces us to then rush back to the excavator, which takes us to the next area – unless it’s the final one, in which case it goes back up, letting us celebrate a job well done. The usual roguelite-inspired progression lets us gain new auto-firing weapons and perks, via spending the XP we get by killing mobs. This way, our dwarven heroes become mightier and mightier, with even permanent upgrades applicable after runs to further facilitate future matches. A familiar formula that’s rendered more unique by the mining element of the game.
Re-re-re-re-reset (click, click, click, click) My, mine, my, mine, I, my, me, mine
In a lot of the better bullet heaven titles, the waves of enemies can actually be susceptible to crowd management, as the player has to navigate around them in a way to group them up, largely increasing our weaponry’s efficiency. This has perhaps never been more true than it is for Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor, as the map is packed with destructible rock formations and minerals, with the player being able to create entire paths among them. Most foes can not, in fact, damage or destroy these barricades, but we can use them to create shortcuts, narrow pathways, desperate escape routes, and more, because our firepower is rarely enough to just bulldoze through every creature head-on. Just remember to watch out for the enemies that can, in fact, tear the walls down. There are even explosive enemies, others that can spread projectiles around, or that can roll around at high speed. By using these enemy behaviours strategically, it’s easy to even use their weapons against them sometimes.
This not only adds a lot of strategic elements, but it also adds an extra layer of risk vs reward mechanic, thanks to the minerals. The formations with shiny coloured rocks to extract take longer to take down, exposing us to enemies for an undesirable amount of time while we linger around, but they give us valuable materials – either to upgrade our dwarf in the run, or towards permanent boosts for future ones. I’ll not circle it – the entire mining mechanic is satisfying as hell, because while it’s fully automated, the player pops through the layers of rocky formations in a very satisfying way, and creating paths on the fly is one of the most unique and exciting features in any of the 200+ bullet heaven titles I own by now. Combined with what is otherwise some very fun combat and traversal as well, we’re definitely looking at one of the more satisfying titles in the genre.
Current objective: Survive
Everything about Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor feels high quality – from the polished gameplay to the vibrant graphics, rendered even more efficient by the visually captivating and diverse underground biomes. The various areas even come with their own gameplay quirks, such as bouncy plants acting as launching pads for the player or regenerating vines. The depth and amount of content are quite impressive, with various game modes that completely change the objectives, plenty of difficulty settings, and various biomes keeping the game’s look fresh. While there are only 4 playable dwarves, as was the case in the original Deep Rock Galactic, there is quite a lot to achieve with ’em: upgrades, skill trees, class mods, a whole rarity-based loot table, and more. The weapon and build variety isn’t all that high in practice, but there’s always something worth working or grinding towards.
What the game lacks is any sort of multiplayer – local or online. While I was aware of this, having played this game for many months now on Steam, it still feels like an odd omission, as many titles in the genre nowadays present such options. It is particularly strange, due to the fact that the original Deep Rock Galactic is generally hailed for its incredible co-op, allowing up to 4 players to dive deep into the underground together in what is easily one of the most exhilarating first-person co-operative titles on the market right now. Honestly, that’s pretty much the game’s only somewhat major omission – aside from the fact that all of the cosmetic changes to our dwarves can only be done via two, separately bought skin pack DLCs.
The dwarves yearn for the mines!
Deep Rock Galactic: Survivors is easily one of the best bullet heaven titles out there – which is no small feat, considering the amount of competition there is nowadays. Excellent visuals, lovely gameplay, with the unique mining mechanics that add a lot of depth to the runs. There’s a ton of content to grind towards, with even 300 unique achievements at launch, making this title a strong candidate to stay installed on your SSD for quite some time. A bit of a shame perhaps that it lacks any sort of co-op, since that’s a huge part of the original Deep Rock Galactic experience. Even so, this is one of the finest bullet heaven games out there right now, and with it launching on Game Pass, you have no excuses not to dig into the deep dungeons of Deep Rock Galactic: Survivors.
Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor
Played on
Xbox Series X, PC
PROS
- One of the best looking bullet heaven titles
- Mining adds an extra tactical layer and is immensely satisfying
- Impressive amount of content and game modes
- Immaculate Deep Rock Galactic vibes...
CONS
- ...but one without co-op? Seriously?
- Not a tremendously high build variety
- All alternate skins are in paid DLCs
