I will preface this by saying that I have about 450 hours played in DRG :)

Complexity: I’d say “mid to low”. Once you get used to the missions (knowing what to do), the complexity drops. This also applies to the biomes. Each biome has a “structure style”. Even though each level is always randomly generated, you will start to get a feel for how the level will “flow” (best word I have in my head at the moment).

Stressful or anxiety inducing: There may be some frustration because you JUST. NEED. TO. GET/FIND. THAT. ONE. LITTLE. THING. but such instances are very very very rare. For 99.9% of the time, it’s typical “do this, do that, complete these objectives, do that side thing, call for evac, GET TO DA CHOPPA”. Celebrate with beers, repeat :)

That said, I play on Haz 3 (there are five difficulty levels) just to chill after work. If I want to play something more challenging with my friends, then we’ll pop it on Haz 4 or 5 :)

Voice comms: Nope; not needed. You can press CTRL to ping stuff so most comms is done that way. Ping to mine something, “we should probably focus fire on this thing”, or go to somewherer. Press V to “ROCK AND STONE” (most important button in the game imo). Anyway, no, voice comms is not needed. There is text chat so it’s good practice to press “r” to tell others when you’re ready for the mission to progress (or call for evac).

Playing with strangers: About 80% of my games are with strangers. It is really easy to host, and hop into games and the game is made in a way where voice comms (see point above) is not needed. We all know what we have to do, so it’s nicely straightforward like that.

A++ can recommend.

We look forward to working with you on Hoxxes IV

ROCK AND STONE!

Lots good input from the rest of these guys, so I’ll just add a few small things. The 5 difficulties are balanced such that you won’t need to worry about the game being too daunting, imo. If you just wanna focus on learning mission mechanics without being overwhelmed by bugs, you can simply play at a lower difficulty. There’s nothing lost by doing so, just that experience and gold gain scale based on it. No content lost.

Like many games, there are tricks you can learn (a lot of animation cancels). The game isn’t balanced around them, though, but they’re also mechanically simple to execute if you do choose to seek them out later on.

At higher levels of difficulty with difficult mission modifiers, or in elite deep dives (the weekly, difficult, set of special missions) I’ve definitely felt stressed - but the good type of stressed?

It’s never been a salt or rage inducing game for me - certainly if you’ve handled Overwatch at it’s most frustrating you’ll be absolutely fine.

I tend to mostly play with friends and in voice chat, but the game has a context sensitive ping and good visibility on where teammates are. It’s definitely doable without. Just spam the V key and you’ll be fine.

I’d compare it more to other horde shooters like left 4 dead, payday and killing floor in gameplay - but I think going from Overwatch to this wouldn’t be too much of a system shock. Character classes excell in particular areas in a similar way to Overwatch.

The single player is very playable too - if you’re looking to try it out before jumping in with people. You get a little robot friend to assist with the general teamwork things you’d normally get in a squad!