Like many of us, Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor developer Funday Games spent much of 2022 infatuated with Vampire Survivors. Within weeks of Poncle throwing himself into Vampire Survivors full time, the charming autoshooter had the entire games industry hooked — and a host of developers taking notes.
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Speaking to NME, Funday Games founder Anders Leicht Rohde says that he got into Vampire Survivors last summer (“a little bit after the hipsters,” he jokes) but found that he wasn’t alone. During August’s Gamescom convention, Rohde recalls Ghost Ship Games co-founders Søren Lundgaard and Mikkel Pedersen “raving” about Vampire Survivors.
Their own studio is best known for Deep Rock Galactic: a co-op shooter where players delve into procedurally-generated, destructible caves to strip them of resources. At Gamescom, the trio discussed Ghost Ship and Funday making a game together — so with the lingering buzz of Vampire Survivors, Rohde flew home to Denmark with an idea in tow.
Within a week, Funday Games’ tiny team — consisting of Rohde, four full-time staff and a part-time audio designer — created the first prototype for Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor; a top-down auto-shooter set in the world of DRG and published by Ghost Ship. In terms of direction, Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor is a lot more involved than Vampire Survivors: rather than endless slaughter, players must launch in, retrieve minerals, meet a kill quota, then make it back to their ship within a 30-second extraction timer.
For a game that’s only been in development for six to seven months, it’s already phenomenal. I’ve been hooked on its closed beta for weeks, and (to my shame) I’ve already sunk more hours into it than Vampire Survivors. I’ve clicked with DRG: Survivor precisely because there’s more direction to each run, such as mining gems for experience and completing tasks, and that’s something Rohde was keen to tap into.
“We added mining within a couple of days to the prototype, because we didn’t want to make a clone [of other autoshooters], we wanted to evolve on the genre,” says Rohde. “It was also a clear goal for Ghost Ship — they wanted something new and close to DRG.”
“It’s now completely different, moment to moment. It’s way more active than other autoshooters where you tend to just move slightly while waiting. Our game is way more strategic and tactical in what you do: you can make chokepoints, caverns where you can use [bouncing projectile] plasma to your advantage.”
However, this approach meant DRG: Survivor risked delving too far from the autoshooter genre’s core mechanics. Funday artist John Muller says that several months ago, the team spent a month trying to add “more missions and more complexity” to DRG: Survivor, in an attempt to make it more like the original Deep Rock Galactic.
“We mocked up going in that direction, spinning even further away from the [genre],” says Muller. “What we found during that process was that it took away from the autoshooter. The game started to get too much about the mission, and not enough about deleting everything on the screen and mining. The game is already kind of pulling away from autoshooting because now you have to worry about exploration and mining as well, so when you add another layer, which is the missions, it almost stops being an autoshooter — it’s like a top-down version of DRG.”
“It stopped being an autoshooter when there was too much other stuff going on,” Muller surmises. “We had to pull back because we found the game was more complicated, but not more fun.”
Now, Muller and Rohde feel DRG: Survivor hits the sweet spot between hands-off slaughter and objective-driven progress. Instead of replicating DRG‘s objectives, they found ways to embrace Ghost Ship’s flagship in other ways: every week or two, someone from the DRG team (usually Lundgaard or Pedersen) drop by to play DRG: Survivor over Discord, chatting with Funday about the game and finding room to squeeze in more DRG.
Muller says these playtests feel like a “partnership,” because the “really constructive” feedback is submitted as a suggestion, rather than an order. These sessions have led to original weapons being swapped out for their remarkably similar counterparts from DRG, items being renamed, or fan-favourite companion Bosco being added because Ghost Ship’s leadership felt a little lonely without it.
“Whenever Mikkel plays, he has a million ideas,” laughs Muller. “We have a huge list of things we’d like to do every time we come away — like, give us six months! — but there’s always loads of ideas going back and forth, it’s just a matter of implementing them all.”
In general, Rohde says that Ghost Ship has become something of a role model for other Danish studios: a “prime example [on] how to build a premium game, do live service, and build a community.” In fact, Deep Rock Galactic’s notoriously wholesome community — best known for their rallying cry “Rock And Stone” — was a large reason why Funday wanted to work within DRG‘s universe.
“A lot of gaming communities these days tend to turn really toxic, but since it’s a co-op game, they’ve somehow managed to ‘Rock and Stone’ it into a positive story, and these [players] are getting into the tests we’re doing now,” says Rohde. “It’s such a thrill to work with their community — on top of this being a very well-fitting IP for an autoshooter, the community is doubling the value for us as developers.”
“It’s an incredibly fun community to work with,” Muller chirps. “There’s no other way to put it. They’re super positive, they really like the IP, and they’re very polite. That makes it really easy to want to deliver something great.”
Survivor is currently in closed beta testing, meaning DRG fans are getting their first taste of the game. Though DRG: Survivor launches in Early Access this year, Rohde says the game is “still really early in development” thanks to a “huge backlog” of additions the team wants to make.
“We’re really just doing whatever feels right for the game right now, which led to an incredibly fast development speed,” Rohde shares, while Muller suggests Survivor could be updated “for years” if Funday kept drawing updates from DRG‘s universe.
Right now, though, the pair are trying to focus on the immediate future, including Survivor‘s Early Access phase. While this will involve more weapons, biomes, and a longer runtime, Rohde is keen to let players “help us drive the roadmap from there,” meaning much of the game’s development will be influenced by what fans have to say.
“We’re super excited to see if they enjoy the turn away from the normal autoshooter,” says Rohde. “I’m not 100 per cent sure if it’s the exact same audience, because there’s some players who just enjoy the laidback, ‘watching the world burn’ feeling, whereas this is harder.”
So far, it’s good news: Rohde says “hardcore” DRG fans have already sunk 30 to 40 hours into the limited playtest, and it’s all been smooth sailing stability-wise — no small feat, as Survivor‘s ever-growing hordes of aliens can turn some levels into a scene from Starship Troopers.
From a hands-on with the game, there’s more than just promise here — Funday is already delivering on the dream it shares with Ghost Ship, and it’s scarily difficult to put down the controller when your last run ends in tears. It’s an exciting time for Survivor: Rohde describes it as the pinnacle of Funday’s 12-year history, while Muller has loved getting to interact with testers on Discord, though acknowledges there will be “pressure” to keep content coming.
“But we have loads of ideas,” he says with a smile, pointing to Ghost Ship’s enthusiasm and Funday’s own plans. “The problem is not coming up with content, it’s making it!”
Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor launches for PC in Early Access this year.
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