Deep Rock Galactic: Rogue Core Performs Well On Steam Deck So Far

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I love what developer Ghost Ship Games is doing with the Deep Rock Galactic series. The original game is phenomenal and is still one of my go-to co-op games when I play with friends. Going around procedurally generated mines and fighting enemies, while getting as many minerals as we can, is a blast. Ghost Ship Games has taken that core idea and started bringing the gameplay to other genres. They made Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor, they take on the Vampire Survivors formula, and now they have Deep Rock Galactic: Rogue Core. This is their take on a roguelike, and is someone who is a fan of roguelikes, I was super excited to try it out for myself. So, as soon as it was released, I purchased the game and dove right in.

The game itself is a lot of fun right now, and I see a lot of what they’re trying to do with the roguelike elements. We do have a solid amount of permanent progression, with character classes, a skill tree, and an entire cosmetic tree. And while the gameplay still has the mining and combat elements, there will be multiple ways to temporarily make yourself more powerful with new weapons, mods, and perks. I’m enjoying it so far, but I want to talk about how it’s actually playing on the Steam Deck and whether I would recommend it so far.

Before getting into it, I just want to mention that the game was released in early access, so it is in active development, and performance is subject to change.

Honestly, Rogue Core's optimization in this early state is very impressive. The game defaults to the low settings with the resolution scale set to 60%. There is no upscaling turned on. In the main hub, it looks extremely ugly. The place is almost completely pixelated, making the entire hub shimmery when walking around. It was a terrible first impression, and I don’t think I would recommend it if the game were like this.

Thankfully, when we are actually in the dark minds, none of this is noticeable. For a second, I had completely forgotten that we’re playing at a 60% resolution scale, because it isn’t obvious at all. Running around in the darkness helps, but even in the spots that are lit up with light or our flare, I never noticed. So, I was fine dealing with it in the hub because it is significantly better in actual gameplay.

And as for performance, I was wonderfully met with something very playable. For the most part, running around and minor combat would stick to 60 FPS and above. It looked and felt wonderful. However, when we got to larger combat with tons of enemies, the framerate would dip. I never saw it go below 45 FPS, but there would regularly be drops when the swarm would come as I fixed the elevator to go down deeper into the mine. I could see this possibly dropping lower if you’re playing with multiple people, since I assume that the action scales to some degree in co-op.

There is some wiggle room with the settings; we could turn down the resolution scale further or try experimenting with upscaling. But for what we have here, it’s very playable and enjoyable. Apart from the hub, it’s visually pleasing and smooth as butter in a majority of the gameplay. Those heavy combat areas and playing with multiple people could drive down the frame rate, but I can see this staying above 30 FPS for sure, and possibly above 40. And who knows, as development continues, there could be more optimizations that keep it at 60 FPS the whole time. Time will tell, but I’m hoping.

Deep Rock Galactic: Rogue Core can be purchased for $29.99 right now.

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