Gravhounds: Early Access Hands-On and Preview
Four-player co-op games are my jam. There’s nothing better than getting together online with a few friends and doing stupid things, dangerous things—all in the comfort and safety of your own house. It also happens to be a great way for middle-aged dudes to maintain long-distance friendships. So I’m always on the lookout for the next game to play. When I saw Gravhounds, I knew it would be something I’d want to check out.
Gravhounds is a 1-4 player co-op game where you take on the role of dogs working for a soulless, greedy corporation. There are four playable dogs: Zane, Finn, Selene, and Dozer. While each canine possesses their own stats and special ability, all dogs share the same base mechanics, tools, and weapons.
The gameplay itself reminds me a bit of Helldivers mixed with Deep Rock Galactic—or perhaps like Rogue Core because of the way upgrades work. You fight bugs, and you mine, returning that ore to your ship. The genetically engineered dogs are pretty fast and nimble, with omni-directional boosting—which can help you move faster or jump higher.
Each mission in Gravhounds is like its own run. You don’t drop into a mission as a specific class, or even with a specific weapon. Instead, you have to choose all of your abilities and weapons in-mission as you level up. You’ll be doing a fair amount of mining, which you use your mining laser/gravity manipulator for, picking up items à la the Gravity Gun from Half-Life 2. You also use this gun to place turrets, fabricators, and more across your network of energy pipelines, which serve as connectors and building nodes.
The game is launching into Early Access, so I’m going to reserve my final judgment until it gets to 1.0. However, there are a few things I didn’t really like: I’m not a fan of how you drag nodes out to attach new ones. It feels imprecise. I’m also not a huge fan of dropping in and having to choose your weapon immediately by dropping down a reward pod—you should be able to choose it right as you land without having to throw a pod. Small gripes, really.
While Gravhounds is best with friends, you don’t have to have a full group to enjoy the game. Difficulty dynamically scales. So even if you want to be a lone wolf, that’s possible. Though I found playing solo a bit tedious as the duties of building, defense, and ore collection fall solely on your dogged shoulders.
Gravhounds also has a meta-progression component. Between missions, you can unlock new weapons, upgrades, and different turrets. You can also unlock new abilities that have the potential to show up during future runs.
While developer Octopus Panic plans on keeping the game in Early Access for 6 months, that might change based on player feedback—according to their Early Access info box on the Steam store page. And they promise to listen to player feedback going forward.
I’ve enjoyed the time I’ve had with Gravhounds so far, but I definitely see where there’s room for improvement. If you want to get in early and be a part of that discussion, there is a decent amount of content, with the core gameplay loop being in place.
Gravhounds is available today on Steam, Xbox Series X|S, and Xbox Game Pass.
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