DRG Rogue Core vs Deep Rock Galactic: What Actually Changed

Updated 2026-10-15: rewritten on 2026-10-14 after a fact check against the official Rogue Core wiki and Ghost Ship's Steam page. The earlier version had the drop pod, the bar, the enemy roster and the Retcon wrong: Rogue Core missions still start in a Drop Pod, the Ramrod has a bar, the Glyphid roster is replaced by Corespawn, and Retcon's rewind doesn't save you from a killing blow. On 2026-10-15 we put back the expected Early Access length, 18 to 24 months: we had removed it as unsourced, but the Steam store page states it.

Who should buy which

Buy Deep Rock Galactic if your favourite part is the job itself: picking a mission type, mining Morkite with three friends, and the panic sprint back to the drop pod. It's the finished game and the friendlier one for a group with mixed skill.

Buy Rogue Core if you've put real time into Hades, Risk of Rain 2 or Deep Rock's own Deep Dives and want the version where every minute counts. Rogue Core is harder, the timer never lets you settle, and the build you leave with is the build you found that run.

Skip Rogue Core for now if you want a lot of content to chew through. It's in Early Access at $29.99, with five classes and three bosses as of Update 02.

*Video: Deep Rock Galactic: Rogue Core launch trailer, Ghost Ship Games on YouTube*

BESTPRICE: Want Deep Rock Galactic: Rogue Core? Eneba sells a Steam key: Buy on Eneba →

DRG Rogue Core vs Deep Rock Galactic side by side

The loop: mining job vs timed descent

In the original you pick a job, do it, and leave. In Rogue Core the job is getting down. You land in the Drop Pod, open a tear in the Greyout Barrier with two Barrier Drones, grab weapons from a container in an abandoned building, then roam the stage for Expenite and upgrades while a timer ticks. Find the elevator, pick a Risk Vector on the way down, and do it again. The last stage is a Gatekeeper at the Rift Gate. Missions run four, five or six stages, and longer ones unlock as your Clearance goes up.

The timer is the real difference. It only stops while you're upgrading. Let it run out and the situation goes Critical with an endless horde. Ghost Ship's own pitch is blunter: "Linger too long, and the Reaperworms will hear you." DRG lets you take a slow lap of a cave to mine every last vein. Rogue Core punishes that.

Winner for a relaxed night with friends: Deep Rock Galactic. Winner for tension: Rogue Core.

Screenshot: Deep Rock Galactic: Rogue Core (Ghost Ship Games)

The classes: five Reclaimers, not four miners

None of the five Reclaimers is a reskin of Driller, Scout, Engineer or Gunner. They share HP and weapon damage, so the class ability is what sets them apart:

• Guardian: the "walking shield". Concussive blasts, area denial, and he restores the team's armor. Pick him if your group keeps going down in swarms.
• Falconer: a Shock Drone with five charges that electrocutes and stuns, a Thunder Rod that doubles allied electric damage, and a remote drone revive on a long cooldown. The safest pick for a squad that loses people to bad positioning.
• Retcon: sets a point in time, then snaps back to it up to 20 seconds later with the health, ammo and armor she had then. It won't save her from a fatal hit, and the cooldown is 75 seconds. Her Contingency Plan passive revives her once per mission when the last dwarf falls.
• Spotter: three Crit Darts that give +100% crit chance against a marked target, wall-piercing sonar, and an ammo pack for the team. Best in a group that focuses fire.
• Slicer: a Plasma Blade that hits for 560, ignores armor and stuns. Pair him with someone who can hold aggro.

The class guide has the full numbers for every ability and deck: DRG Rogue Core class guide. If you've already picked a main, start with the Guardian guide, the Falconer guide, the Retcon guide, the Spotter guide or the Slicer guide.

Winner for class depth: a draw. DRG's classes have years of overclocks behind them. Rogue Core's have sharper abilities and Bio Booster decks that change how each one plays mid-run.

Enemies and bosses

The Glyphid roster is not Rogue Core's main threat. The Corespawn are: humanoid, wall-climbing, and spawned in waves through Corespawn Rifts, with OMEGA warning you before each wave hits. Around them you get flying Voidkin, charging Rafkan, Shatterclaw hordes that drop from ceilings, exploding Krizzok, Automaton robots and native Hoxxes creatures. Ghost Ship's store page counts more than 20 enemy types.

The bigger change is the boss. DRG doesn't end a mission on a boss fight. Every Rogue Core run ends at a Gatekeeper's Rift Gate, and there are three: Gotoorak, Ramok and Molaktula, each on its own Depth. Our Gatekeeper bosses guide covers health, weak points and every Corestone phase.

Screenshot: Deep Rock Galactic: Rogue Core (Ghost Ship Games)

The hub: Space Rig vs RV-09 Ramrod

The Ramrod is the Space Rig's replacement, and it kept the fun parts. OMEGA, the ship's AI, runs a bar and gym with a jukebox, and there's a Medbay, a Wardrobe, personal cabins, a weekly Gauntlet terminal and an Ascension hall. The store page's line for it: "Lift weights, braid your beard, hit the dance floor, and have a beer with your team." If you were worried the spinoff dropped the beer, it didn't.

Winner: a draw, and that's a compliment to Ghost Ship.

Progression: what you keep between runs

In Deep Rock Galactic your guns, upgrades and overclocks stay unlocked. In Rogue Core you scavenge weapons and equipment inside each run, and those reset. What you keep is account and class progress:

• Intel and Clearance Levels. Each Clearance Level has four Intel tasks (reclaim a facility, recover cameras, summon a Gatekeeper and so on). Clearing them unlocks deeper Depths, longer facilities, new biomes and a third Risk Vector choice.
• Enhancements. Up to eight permanent stat slots per Reclaimer, bought with Merits.
• Ascension. Rogue Core's version of Promotions: hit the level cap on a class, pay Merits, reset to level 1 and keep what you unlocked.

The upgrade guide walks through the spend order: DRG Rogue Core upgrade and progression guide. For what's coming next in Early Access, see the Rogue Core roadmap.

Winner for long-term goals: Deep Rock Galactic, for now. Rogue Core's meta layer is real but thinner, which is normal for a game five months into Early Access.

Our take

We'd tell most people to start with Deep Rock Galactic. It's the warmer game, the easier one to bring a friend into, and it's finished. Rogue Core is for the player who already knows DRG's caves and wants them to bite back: a timer, a boss at the bottom and a build that starts from zero every time. Buy it now if that's you. Wait for more classes and Gatekeepers if you mostly play with a casual group.

New to Rogue Core? The complete guide hub lays out the first runs, and the co-op team builds page covers which Reclaimers pair well.

How we checked this

Facts come from the official Deep Rock Galactic wiki's Rogue Core pages (Missions, RV-09 Ramrod, Creatures, Reclaimers, class pages, Ascension, Enhancements) and Ghost Ship's Steam store page, checked on 2026-10-14. We didn't play a full run for this piece.

References

• Deep Rock Galactic: Rogue Core on Steam: store description, class list, price and release date
• Deep Rock Galactic on Steam: the original game
• Rogue Core: Missions (official wiki): drop pod start, stages, timer, Intel and Clearance
• Rogue Core: RV-09 Ramrod (official wiki): the hub, bar and terminals
• Rogue Core: Creatures (official wiki): enemy families
• Rogue Core: Retcon (official wiki): Rewind Time and Contingency Plan