It'salways fascinating when you get to watch a new game genre emerge and evolve – over my life in gaming I’ve gotten to see it with the MOBA, battle royale, tower defence and more. For the last few years, the defining example has been auto-shooters – a genre so new, in fact, that we’ve not even really settled on that name yet.
What I’m talking about is Vampire Survivors-likes. The indie hit enjoyed huge success, and spawned countless imitators, thanks to the simple format, other developers have been able to put out their own spins on the genre in record time, giving it a kind of hyper-accelerated evolution.
I could list great auto-shooters for days – favourites of mine include Renfield, and 20 Minutes Til Dawn – but for me the one that’s leading the pack, and helping the genre feel more developed and complete, is Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor.