Deep Rock Galactic roguelike dev says innovation for innovation’s sake is too expensive to survive: “We’re a studio of 50 people with bills to pay”

Deep Rock Galactic Survivor’s director recently got frank about the realities of game development, explaining that his team keeps “our innovation as low as possible” because innovation for innovation’s sake is just too expensive in this climate.

Funday Games CCO Anders Leicht Rohde, who’s working with Ghost Ship Games to direct roguelike spin-off Deep Rock Galactic Survivors, said as much in an interview with Edge Magazine’s 407th issue, out now.

“It sounds weird but we try to keep our innovation as low as possible,” the director explained. “We’ll say ‘it’s this game but with that.’ It takes so much time to innovate. Sometimes you find the hidden holy Grail of game design, but often indie developers sit for five years trying out stuff. We’re a studio of 50 people with bills to pay. So we can’t do that.”

In the case of Deep Rock Galactic Survivors, it’s about what you’d expect. It’s Deep Rock Galactic’s sci-fi dwarves and subterranean mining but with Vampire Survivors’ bullet heaven structure.

“I do not believe creative work just exists in a vacuum, where you can just decide to be creative and then you’re innovative and not inspired by anything,” he continued. “You’re always copying, even if you try to sit in your basement and not play other games.”

With so many layoffs and studio closures hitting the industry, a studio like Funday Games doesn’t have the luxury to spend an indefinite amount of time to create something that’s never been done before. But as Rohde says, nothing is totally new. Even Vampire Survivors simply perfected (and popularized) a formula that already existed.

And that philosophy seems to have worked well enough for Deep Rock Galactic Survivors, which became a sizeable hit anyway, maybe partly because the DRG fanbase is “one of the most active communities on the planet.”

For more, check out some other upcoming indie games of 2025 that are worth keeping an eye on.