Hardest Biomes In Deep Rock Galactic: Survivors, Ranked

Highlights

• Crystalline Caverns is the safest biome in Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor, with harmless crystal clusters to break.
• Magma Core is more dangerous due to hot rocks and explosive plants, providing challenges with terrain hazards.
• Hollow Bough is the most dangerous biome, with thorny vines and dried grass making navigation tricky for players.

Currently in the early access version of Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor there are 3 different biomes, the Crystalline Caverns, the Magma Core, and the Hollow Bough. Each of these BIomes comes with their own share of colorful ‘quirks’ that may or may not make things easier for a Dwarf just trying to get through the work day while fighting off hordes of vicious Glyphids.

While the Glyphids themselves are pretty dangerous, if the arena was empty players could effectively kite them around forever. But, it’s the Biomes themselves that make these creatures so lethal, as running away from a horde but having a wall full of minerals in the way of your escape is what makes this game so difficult. So, let’s go over all three of the Biomes in Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor and talk about which one is the most dangerous and which one is the easiest for beginners to get through.

3 Crystalline Caverns

One of Hoxxes’ Most Beautiful Locations Filled With Useless Crystals

Thankfully, because DRG: S is a spinoff game from the Deep Rock Galactic franchise, we actually have plenty of info and ‘lore’ about the Crystalline Caverns from the get go. This is the first Biome players will ecounter in Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor and it serves as the ‘tutorial’ location. As far as dangers go in the Crystalline Caverns, there’s not much extra that this Biome adds. The most pronounced feature are the crystals, of course, but those only need about 2 hits at most of a Dwarf’s pickaxe in order to break, which means they’re not much of a hazard at all.

In general, this is clearly the safest Biome in the game by a longshot, but that absolutely doesn’t mean that all Hazard Levels of this Biome will be easy, as even just Biome 3 can feel almost impossible if players haven’t invested enough in their permenant upgrades yet.

2 Magma Core

The Only Biome Where the Terrain Can Hurt You

By now readers can probably tell that these rankings follow the natural progression order of DRG: S, with Crystalline Caversn being the safest, Magma Core being a bit dangerous, and Hollow Boughs being the most dangerous. While it might seem like this only makes sense, there are a good number of games out there with areas or biomes found earlier that are much harder than ones found later. In any case, the Magma Core is essentially the volcanic Biome of Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor, and the perils that come with doing a run in the Biome are heat and fire related. First off, let’s talk about Hot Rock.

In the main Deep Rock Galactic game, Hot Rock simply means terrain with glowing heat pulsing through its crevices that’ll damage a player whenever they stand on it. This also exists in DRG: S, but it doesn’t only apply to the ground. Players can also dig through walls made of Hot Rock, which lets them know ahead of time that the terrain below the wall is also Hot Rock, essentially warning them they’ll be taking a bit of passive damage (2-3 damage per tick) walking through here.

The only other real ‘hazard’ of this Biome outside of the Hot Rock are the Explosive Plants, volatile bulbous red plants that, when approached, glow and grow before exploding violently. If a player gets caught in this explosion, they’ll be taking even more damage then they would getting caught in a Glypid Exploder explosion, so players will want to walk just close enough to set them off and quickly back away before they explode otherwise they’ll almost assuredly die (unless they got lucky and have a great Artifact).

1 Hollow Bough

Area Denial & More Mactera Enemies

Last up is the third and final Biome in DRG: S for now, Hollow Bough. Though, it’s worth mentioning that the game is in early access and it’s likely there’ll be more Biomes added from the main game later on such as the dense Biozone, Fungus Bogs, Salt Pits, and more. For now, however, the Hollow Boughs are the most dangerous to survive in. However, compared to the Magma Core, it’s not like the Hollow Boughs have more terrain that can hurt the player, but rather due to all the terrain it has that forces the player into a corner. In the Hollow Boughs players will find two types of terrain especially interesting, the patches of Dried Grass and the walls of Thorny Vines. In the standard Deep Rock Galactic players could dig through Thorny Vines with their pickaxe while at most taking a bit of extra damage, but in DRG: S that’s not possible.

So, these Thorny Vine act as an unpassable barrier that players (and enemies) need to dig around to reach different parts of the map. Because of this and the fact that those Dried Grass patches come back after a few seconds, players will quickly find themselves cornered when in this Biome if they’re not careful. And, to make matters worse, it does seem like Mactera enemies seem to spawn more in this Biome than the other two Biomes, and they’ll punish players even more if they’re caught digging through walls at a ‘less than optimal’ pace.

Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor was released on February 14th, 2024, and is available on PC.