Deep Sky Derelicts

Deep Sky Derelicts poses as a true original dark sci-fi roguelike experience, successfully distancing itself from Darkest Dungeon clone title it received. With its definitive edition, even with lack of compelling narrative, it is a rich experience with a huge depth of combat, exploration and customization that is to be expected from such experience.

Overall it’s a fun game and a great way to pass the time. It’s not overly violent (well I mean you are killing creatures, robots etc… but it’s all in comic book style art so it doesn’t come across as gory) so you can play it with younger eyes about (something far more likely to be the case with the current pandemic). It’s pretty decent value too when you consider the replayability of different character types with different strengths and weaknesses and different play options outside the main storyline. If you like RPG’s, roguelikes, tactical card battle games there’s a good chance you will enjoy this.

It doesn’t pull you in with the same force as Darkest Dungeon does, but this a more than decent alternative. If you like your turn-based tactics mixed with a hefty does of science fiction, this is definitely for you.

It's literally the embodiment of "easy to pick up, difficult to master" and it will provide fans of Darkest Dungeon with another terrifying journey into the unknown that will require nuanced and strategic gameplay in order to be successful.

Everything about Deep Sky Derelict seems to have been done right, from the synthwave soundtrack to the lore to the unusual combat system. It’s rare that a game with procedural elements holds my attention for long, and rarer still that an RPG can show me something new.

Delicious art style, excellent music, varied tactical combat – Snowhound’s tactical RPG got some things right, but there’s a strange dissonance between the game’s atmosphere of dark sci-fi and its absurd humor. Had the game offered a deeper strategic layer and something besides exploring wreck after wreck, I probably would have spent more time with it than those 14 hours after which it simply became boring. [12/2018, p.73]

A sci-fi version of Darkest Dungeon. It has a weak story and its procedurally generated missions are tedious, but battles and development of your heroes are strangely addictive.

If you're looking for a turn-based strategy game set in a dystopian world where you won't feel attached by your characters and don't need to pay attention to the story, Deep Sky Derelicts has a lot to offer. Keep in mind though that while it's easy to pick up, Snowhound Games' title is hard to master.

Craftsmanship-based science-fiction RPG fun with cards, which at the same time doesn´t offer any reason to why it should be memorized for a long time. Basically, all of its elements are good, but not exceptional. [Issue#291]

To me, Deep Sky Derelicts is a rare foil to the games of today. A title that hones in on creating exciting and rewarding gameplay systems is both difficult and rare. It’s the missing half to the atmospheric, but gameplay thin, Darkest Dungeon. That’s a real shame, too, because given the unique setting, there was so much space for creative expression. If you’re looking for another loot-based dungeon to crawl around in, there’s a solid game in here, but there’s just too many underwhelming things for me to get excited.

It’s a real shame to see such great card/strategy combat bogged down by its interface, but perhaps there will be updates rectifying some of these issues. From what I’ve read of Deep Sky Derelicts’ early access development updates, the team behind the game seems responsive to feedback. So, here’s to hoping that the rock-solid combat and deckbuilding are supported by UI and quality-of-life changes in the future. Until then, DSD will likely drift around in the endless void that is my Steam library.

Great ideas and some outright fun is far too often marred by technical glitches, a maddening GUI, and simply overwhelming amounts of numbers and terms with very little information as to what any of it does. The originality of the game is cool but there are too many ideas were packed in without actually making sure they all work together coherently.