DIG OR DIE Review for PC

Don’t come into Dig or Die with any preconceived expectations. Like Minecraft, it’s a survival, crafting, sandbox builder; and like Terraria, it takes place on a 2D plane. Even Starbound has a sci-fi theme and setting. Looking at Dig or Die with expectations as to what it should be, for good or for bad, is a poor way to experience the game. While not perfect, the title is fun in its own right; even if elements of the game sometimes feel derivative or uninteresting.

Dig or Die, a newly released title from Gaddy Games, takes the elements of survival block builder games and condenses them to a much tighter narrative experience. Trapped on an alien world after sales trip gone wrong, your impatient AI companion tasks you with building a new space ship to escape. Luckily as the representative of CRAFT & Co you’ve access to automated fabrication technology you can use to build bases, turrets and more. You’ll need it too.

The hostile planet you’ve crash landed on is, from the very first day, determined to kill you. All life on the death world is hostile and, if you’ve killed a member of their species, will come in droves to kill you at night. This introduces what is perhaps the most interesting mechanic in Dig or Die. Every time the sun sets, monsters spawn at an incredibly fast rate and begin to converge on your location. Until dawn rises you’re alone against swarms of vicious creatures. Building turrets and hunkering down in a bunker like a doomsday prepper is often the best you can do. Killing animals causes their kin to start seeking you out, a con that must be weighed against obtaining materials needed to progress through the game.

Indeed, Dig or Die borrows from Metroidvanias in many ways. Requiring you to craft better items to progress or forcing you to return to areas once inaccessible. Building new, more powerful weapons typically demands new mining ores. Or a stronger tool for digging minerals might require new creature drops. Feeding off each other, progression is tied to a central crafting table that must be periodically upgraded so as to make new gear that can then be used to delve deeper and deeper into the subterranean depths of the planet, uncovering even more new enemies, crafting materials and biomes. This tight progression loop and narrative experience sets Dig or Die apart from its more sandbox, “do whatever you want” competitors. Indeed, the relatively horizontal small map size, and the need to return to your downed spaceship computer for advice, constricts movement in an otherwise procedurally generated landscape. Personally, I find this sense of progression to be a positive in a world of often otherwise aimless counterparts.

The big draw for this title from Gaddy Games is this progression as well as small tweaks to the block builder formula. The gunplay feels smooth and intuitive and immediately feels different from most titles that limit you, at first, to melee weapons. The large roster of shotguns, Gatling guns and more all are fun to use. While at times a bother, the nighttime assaults on your base lend an ever-present sense of danger. “Do I continue digging, and potentially get caught at night unprotected? Or do I risk it to hopefully find some better crafting material?” The fast and frenetic swarm battles are a highlight that truly test your base building and combat skills. Still, for what Dig or Die giveth it also taketh away.

Compared to Minecraft or Terraria this game lack many, many features. While some might argue Minecraft, subject to nearly ten years of patches, updates and new content, is bloated, it offers a much more interesting experience than Dig or Die. The world, despite supposedly holding millions of creatures poised to kill you, is somewhat sterile. Other than the occasional enemy or simple plant there’s not much to see. Biomes are not nearly as interesting or plentiful as they could be. The sheer number of building tools, biomes, creatures and items found in other games are simply not present here. While not ugly, the art style and animations of the world, its creatures and the player, is very simple and plain. I didn’t find myself wanting to come back this game nearly as often as I had other, more famous, titles. Probably thanks, in part, to the much more limited building options that limits creativity. Despite these flaws, Dig or Die is a very capable title and a testament to what developer passion can churn out.

For players interested in a more streamlined experience Dig or Die delivers. It’s a tight, combat heavy, building and crafting game. While plain and somewhat empty it nevertheless provides a unique, if not altogether engaging, experience. Without the huge amounts of content provided by its competition Dig or Die makes up for its flaws with smooth combat, a streamlined story and a responsive crafting feedback loop. With room for future improvements and new content Gaddy Games could make something to rival long established champions of the genre.

8/10

Here is the Dig or Die Steam Launch Trailer:

Dig or Die is available for PC via Steam for $11.99 in the US and £9.29 in the UK in English, French, Russian, German, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Brazilian, Spanish, and Dutch.

Kael Barend

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I'm a lifelong gamer who, as a child, snuck away during recess to play Oregon Trail on my school computers. I'm an omni-gamer with a wide variety of gaming interests from Soulbornes to Grand Strategy to shooters and everything in between. I'm also a huge fan of the newly burgeoning board games hobby which has produced some of the greatest analog games in history. Gaming is more than a hobby, it's a part of my lifestyle and self identity.

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