The early moments of Gravhounds aren’t hugely impressive. That may sound a strange way to start, but the fact I can’t stop wanting to go back for another run tells you that the early moments are certainly not what you should be judging this title by.
Not to compare too much, but if you remember Deep Rock Galactic back when it was in early access, that’s very much what Gravhounds feels like to me, only third-person, and with dogs instead of Dwarves.
The setup is even similar. You’re dogs (there are five, each a different breed with different skills) and you’re aboard a mercantile ship run by, I think, something or someone nefarious who is sort of making you work. It’s unclear (and slightly irrelevant) at this stage, but regardless, your job as the titular Gravhounds is to be put to work, mine, explore, and upgrade, all while shooting the various aliens that will attack your ship and try to stop you escaping with the goods.
Enemies range from flying “things”, to Cthulu-dogs, giant fire-worms, and everywhere else in-between. Where Gravhounds differs from Deep Rock, though, is that it leans into tower defence. While you have skills and weapons, your main manner of defending your escape ship while mining is turrets. You have all manner of them as well, from simple gunners to rocket launchers, laser beams, and more still.
The idea is you can set up a pipeline to your ship, spending currency and making turrets on each node that connects the pipeline. Once active, they will defend for you, and you can upgrade them once they’ve acquired enough XP (by killing) from the base turret, to one of the ones you’ve unlocked like the aforementioned rocket or laser turret.
While this is happening, you’ll be off mining resources, or exploring for blueprints and secrets. Gravhounds can be played solo, but it’s so much better with friends. Myself and Steve quickly devised a method whereby I’d explore and he’d build, so his base building could stand up to the onslaught while I was finding blueprints on the planets, or mining goodies for whatever objective was set on that particular mission.
The Hounds themselves all have different stats, and each has an independent levelling system. If you level up the big lad whose special lets him burrow into the dirt to plant mines, you can increase his health to be very much tank-like. But that means when you switch to the Doberman whose special “barks” enemies away (repelling them), you’ll be back to level one and need to grind for their skills, turret specialisations, and weapon upgrades.
It’s a hoot with friends, to be honest with you. Dropping resources onto the pipeline and watching them slowly hover towards the ship to gain you more money (to buy more turrets) and resources (to upgrade your Hound) is entertaining. You can even jump on the pipeline to speed back along with them if you fancy.
It’s here, however, that the “early access” nature rears its head a bit. First up, balance. I’m not sure the game I’m playing will be the game that “comes out”, because at the moment the balance is a bit off. Waves come and go, and unless we both missed something, I can’t tell if it’s time, or something we’re doing that triggers each wave. You are also very, very squishy, and when you die you become a cute plushie dog toy and have to slowly (and I mean very slowly) work your way back to base to respawn. You can jump onto the pipeline if it’s near, and your friends can throw you with their grav-guns if they’re near, but otherwise, it’s slow.
The grav-gun stuff is another high point, mind you. You can build, heal turrets, and generally throw stuff around, but the boosting mechanic that feels as though it makes up the other half of the “grav” part of the game, needs work.
For starters, it’s messy, controller-wise. Jump is where you’d expect it to be, but “B” on an XBOX controller is “slide” which is how you boost about. Instead of clicking the left stick to boost, the left stick is to deploy a reward, giving you an in-run upgrade buff. It’s alien to most people to play this way, and it’s exacerbated by hitting the “map” (drone) menu and not being able to exit it with the B-button, instead having to hit the map button again (back button). These little things can, and should be ironed out, and it’s early access, so I’m not too worried yet.
There’s also friendly fire from your turrets, which I think needs a second look. I understand why it’s there, but when you’re also getting personal guns you can upgrade, the suggestion is that you should be in amongst the fight as well as setting up a defensive grid. Frankly, getting blasted by your own laser while trying to shotgun your way out of trouble isn’t ideal.
The special abilities of the individual hounds seem very imbalanced, too. Dozer’s defensive abilities seem great, but Selene (the Weimaraner) has an ability that lets you throw a disc and then warp to it, which in practice is clunky as an escape, with an animation afterwards you can’t get out of. Likewise, Doberman Zane has a bark to knockback enemies, but the hordes are so vast, it just doesn’t feel spot on yet.
There’s so much here to enjoy though, and Gravhounds looks on course to take many of the ideas Deep Rock Galactic has and forge its own path. It may be in early access on PC and preview program on XBOX, but I can already see that if done right, this will gain an audience and be a fun game to play with friends. It’s also in Game Pass right now, so it’s definitely worth checking out and having a session with friends for a few hours. It has charm and character, and aside a few early issues, I think this one will get there. I’m looking forward to seeing where it ends up, that’s for sure.
Gravhounds is in early access for PC and preview program for XBOX now.
