Bore Blasters fits in with the wacky popular games releasing as of late between Palworld’s take on Pokemon and Helldivers 2’s silly satire. When I think of dwarves mining, my mind immediately goes to the rock and stone of Deep Rock Galactic. Where you’re mining with pickaxes and powerful drills. The last thing I expected to mine with in Bore Blasters is a gyrocopter using a machine gun.
This ridiculousness sets the foundation for a beautifully chaotic time shooting gems and pesky enemies. Fans of the classic mining game Motherload and similar ones like SteamWorld Dig should take a look at Bore Blasters. It successfully stands out by delivering a fast-paced roguelite full of action.
Each stage starts you at the top of an area where your goal is to dig to the bottom and escape. Along the way, you’ll encounter a variety of biomes, enemies, and gems to upgrade your gyrocopter. As opposed to digging to the bottom to beat the game, Bore Blasters revolves around unique stages.
This provides a welcome twist on the formula where you dig for resources and constantly have to haul them back to the top. Instead of flying up for several minutes, you only have to reach the bottom before picking a new stage. In doing so, this does take away from feeling the depth of your mining.
But it makes more sense with the fast-paced action that Bore Blasters is going for. Since you have a limited amount of time from the start as your fuel begins draining. This forces you to dig down as quickly as you can. Even though the many unique biomes and enemies will get in your way.
Between blocks that shoot fireballs and forests that grow out of control to swallow you. This is an area where Bore Blasters excels at keeping each stage captivating. One neat mechanic is how the area gets darker as you get deeper. This limits your vision to a cone in the direction you’re looking. Which makes for a terrifying surprise when a giant leapfrog goblin ambushes you.
However, the real difficulty comes back to the constant ticking countdown of your fuel. I frequently ran out of time even if I focused on digging straight down. While there isn’t much to explore or even complicated objectives, I always felt behind. Fortunately, the developers are generous in how they treat your losses. As long as you complete the stage’s quest, you’ll still make progress. In addition to gaining gems for passive meta-progression upgrades.
Such as more fuel, dealing extra damage, having more health, etc. Similarly, you can get temporary upgrades like these during a stage as well as more interesting ones. While I love opting for increased damage and a higher rate of fire, I also love my exploding drills. But, there’s nothing more satisfying than the powerful character abilities.
Typically you don’t want to collide into walls as you’ll damage your gyrocopter. However, the first character has an ability where they can safely smash through walls. This is a game-changer when you need to bust through tough blocks. And sometimes it’s just a blast to break the rules.
I just wish the developer would have focused less on creating a consistently challenging experience and more on allowing power creep. As you get farther from stages near the start, you’ll encounter deeper dives that come with tougher obstacles. This makes it harder to get to a place where your power is overwhelming. And if you’re lucky enough to reach that point, once the stage ends, all your temporary upgrades are gone.
Even though a good chunk of the gameplay is a race to the bottom, a loose story also runs alongside it. There’s an ongoing war between the dwarves and goblins. While digging for gems you’ll destroy goblin houses and steal technology that’ll have you asking if you’re the bad guy.
Unfortunately, many of the Bore Blasters quests don’t teach you much about this war. And instead, they opt for silly dialogue that doesn’t contribute much to the plot. Although this is perfectly okay, it’s tough to feel any attachment to what’s going on or the characters with their limited characterization.
The simple story is enough to break up the monotony once you’ve experienced every biome several times. However, it doesn’t do much more than that. Which can make the grind start to drag as you’re in the finishing stretch.
Bore Blasters Review | Closing Thoughts
Bore Blasters’ gameplay delivers a splendid experience worth buying. It may not have a story you’ll remember for years to come. But the overall journey is still a satisfying one. It’s easy to lose yourself in the mining as you blow apart dirt and goblins. This combined with a great soundtrack and sound design sets the vibe just right.
Review Score: 7.5/10 (Good)
Bore Blasters was provided by a PR agency via a Steam code.
Jeff is a journalist with over 10 years of experience writing, streaming, and making content about video games. With an associate degree in journalism, he’s a sucker for RPGs, survival games, roguelikes, and more.