For those who haven't seen the light, Deep Rock Galactic is a cooperative horde shooter involving a bunch of dwarves mining a planet for an uncaring mega corp. It's basically Left 4 Dead but instead of zombies, you're shooting bugs, and you've also got to collect materials. Dare I say it: DRG is the best co-op horde shooter.

But Deep Rock Galactic was just ground zero. Since then, these dwarves have gone on to infiltrate other genres and take their thrones too. This takeover started with Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor, which is, you guessed it, DRG if it were Vampire Survivors. Like the main game, you can still dig paths through the environment and collect resources for upgrades, firmly setting itself apart from the rest of the genre. Plus, it's the perfect game for my ROG Ally, so I can play Deep Rock on the move (or, more commonly, in bed).

And now Deep Rock Galactic: Rogue Core has released into early access. Again, the name gives it away, but it's DRG if it were a roguelike. As Wes Fenlon explains in our first impressions, it's not quite hitting the peaks of the main game (yet, at least), but it's a reverse-engineered roguelike twist on one of my favourite games of all time. In other words: I'm doomed.

The basic gist is that you pick a class (they're more like hero characters), load into a mission to race to the bottom of a monster-infested mine, and grab various upgrades along the way. Much like in the main game, it's how these characters interact with each other that's the star of the show. After accidentally picking the Guardian one match, I think it might actually be my favourite of the bunch. I can fire a shotgun blast of orbs that stun enemies or use that energy to create a creature-repelling field. And my ultimate ability places a bubble shield that restores armour to allies.

This plays into various builds you have to scrounge up on the fly, like faster ability regeneration when standing still, firing lightning when you have armour, and so on. And in typical DRG fashion, you're encouraged to problem-solve with your team, which is oddly rare for co-op games in my experience, not least because each player gets to bagsy an upgrade.

Rogue Core is admittedly a bit barebones right now, but developer Ghost Ship Games has proven with Deep Rock Galactic that it's able to massively expand and iterate on projects over years. I'm dying to sink more hours into Rogue Core's early access as my current roguelike obsession. And I'll no doubt dive back in when it's almost unrecognisable further down the line.

Most impressive of all, Ghost Ship has proven just how malleable its dwarves are. So much so that you'd have thought Deep Rock was always a survivor-like (sorry, "bullet heaven") or a roguelike.

I'm curious where the series will go next. Perhaps a rhythm game? Racing? Honestly, it could be a life sim aboard the mining rig and I'd still be down for it. You know what? That's actually not a bad idea. I might be a tad biased though, given my work profile picture is the Scout and my Steam name is literally Deep Rock Propagandist.

I've been writing for over half of my entire life, and about videogames in a professional capacity for over three years now—so I mean it when I say that there is nothing I resent more about the English language than the need to define something. It's a bloody headache, especially when it comes to something so ephemeral as genre.

It's still important, mind—the difference between a Strategy game and an RPG is still useful—but the headaches I get when arguing over whether something like Deadlock is more of a MOBA than a hero shooter (psst, it's a MOBA) are almost not worth the effort.

These kinds of problems turn out to be internal at some games studios, too. Take Dune: Awakening director Joel Bylos, who has finally settled—for now, temporarily—on the fact that Awakening is not, in fact, an MMO, per this interview with FRVR.

"I don’t think it’s an MMO. I’ve worked on multiple MMOs for sure, but I think there was a weird space where we were trying to do slightly more. We have this big, connected world, we have this big deep desert with lots of players being able to go in there. So it was a hard game to describe, and I always find that people kind of have a very set notion of what a genre is. So it’s hard to describe something that does something slightly new."

Bylos is, at least, an authority on what constitutes an MMO to a degree. He's worked on MMOs The Secret World, as well as Conan: Exiles, another survival-MMO hybrid (see what I mean? Definitions are insufferable).

"It’s not an MMO, is my strong feeling right now. It’s definitely not." says Bylos, citing the fact that most endgame progression in Dune: Awakening is done via crafting rather than chasing after item levels on a treadmill.

Still, that's not always up for developers themselves to decide—take Crimson Desert. During my preview event, developer Pearl Abyss was adamant it's not an RPG. Yet look at PC Gamer's own staff, and you'll have people (such as our own Fraser Brown) swearing up-and-down that it is, or others arguing that it's a weird hybrid.

Personally I'm on team "it's at least an action RPG" because no pure action game has stronghold management, but that's exactly the point. Definitions are a nightmare, and we should all collectively give up the written word in exchange for panicked screaming. I'd be out of a job, but I wouldn't have to think about the difference between roguelike and roguelite ever again.