Hello everyone!
Welcome to yet another look behind the scenes of Deep Rock Galactic! This time we’d like to present a bit of backstory for the world and setting of DRG. Where in the universe are we and what the heck is going on!
Before we get to that though, a short explanation of our thinking behind it: As you might know by now, Deep Rock Galactic is first and foremost a multiplayer game, and as such is meant to be experienced online together with your friends or strangers (who are just friends you haven’t met yet!). You can play it 1-4 players and with any combination of dwarves. This means that telling a character-driven story centered on the dwarves themselves doesn’t make that much sense. Instead, we will be focusing on embedding narrative within the world itself - a narrative you will uncover as you progress through the game. We want to hint at what’s going on rather than explicitly tell you, and allow you to piece it together at your own pace.
So what do we know so far? Robert Friis, our Art Director, put it into writing and here it goes…
Welcome to Hoxxes!
Hoxxes is a nasty piece of work. A real shithole. A scorched, tidally locked planet, orbiting the angry blue sun of Creus, along with several siblings. Hoxxes stands out among them all, for two reasons:
- Her extraordinarily rich deposits of precious minerals, and
- her staggeringly hostile environment.
For years, interplanetary mining corporations have attempted to tame Hoxxes, but up until now they have failed. One by one they have left, tails between their legs, seeking to please their shareholders elsewhere in the galaxy.
Only one corporation stubbornly remains: Deep Rock Galactic. The company is notorious for its general lack of safety precautions, but famous for taking on the opportunities other companies would not even consider. It offers hefty paychecks and bonuses rather than sanctioned work safety guarantees, which tends to mean that their field operatives are among the meanest and most capable bastards this side of Orion. Mercenaries, soldiers, ex-pirates, bounty hunters...and dwarves. This stunty race of surly, muscular humanoids, otherwise known as “Stonekin”, is known across the galaxy as some of the most skillful miners and hardiest warriors ever to exist. Deep Rock Galactic offers exactly the kind of challenge dwarves thrive in.
Hoxxes bears her battle scars proudly. Generations of corroded mining equipment, crashed freighters, and the withered, ash-filled husks of lost outposts litter her surface, and thousands of miles of half-collapsed mine shafts and vast cave systems stretch deep and enticingly underground, as if to say “What of it, boys? Who’s next?”.
There’s more to worry about on Hoxxes IV than just the electromagnetic storms, gravity anomalies, tectonic instability, or seas of sulphuric acid however - Hoxxes IV is home to one of the most diverse selections of horrible, horrible life yet found in the galaxy. Fueled by an unending barrage of radioactive emissions from Creus, and aided by a steady influx of biomatter and rapidly mutating micro organisms left behind by the invading mining corporations, the children of Hoxxes grow up large, angry, territorial, and generally impervious to most ammunition short of a tank round. And if the pincers, teeth, tentacles, and altogether too many eyes of Hoxxes’ children isn’t enough to scare you away, rumors of even worse and much older, sinister, and alien things down in the deepest excavations abound.
The road ahead will not be easy on the operatives of Deep Rock Galactic. But that’s fine. There’s profit to be made, and there are always more volunteers arriving.
So that’s what we’re going with for now - a brutal, dirty sci-fi setting that pulls no punches. We haven’t settled on many of the finer details yet, and we’re very excited to discover and develop this universe as the production progresses. If you want to chip in with your ideas, please feel free to do so. :-)
Well, that’s it for now! You got a hostile planet to mine, and Deep Rock Galactic doesn’t pay you by the hour. The danger and the darkness awaits! Time to get to work!
Cheers, Mikkel
https://twitter.com/Mikkelmartin