Cave Digger 2: Dig Harder

Cave Digger 2 is no technical showpiece, and annoying little issues do have a tendency to pop up just often enough to be a distraction. Pickaxe swings often don’t register right, you can find yourself lodged into nearly inescapable crannies, and hand tracking has a tendency to bug out occasionally. So, Cave Digger 2: Dig Harder is still a delightful diamond in PSVR2’s launch catalogue, but its intermittent issues and wanting variety cause it to lose some of its lustre.

Cave Digger 2 is a good value, especially considering the Xbox game-sharing trick with a friend. It offers solid gameplay, an enticing setting, and humor, despite technical and gameplay limits appearing after a few hours. The ability to play cooperatively with up to four people across platforms is a bonus. Recommended for survival enthusiasts, especially those craving new products.

Cave Digger 2 is not a bad game, but despite its procedural environment generation, it eventually falls into monotony. Online partners in cooperation can help you with that, but even that is not enough in the end. It remains an experience that you will enjoy once, but you won't come back to it.

Cave Digger 2: Dig Harder is a tough game to recommend, especially because it released over a month ago as of writing this and it's still as annoyingly glitchy as it is. There is a bit of fun to be had, though, especially for those who love the grind.

Cave Digger 2 is just too mechanically inconsistent to fully recommend. While there is a fun roguelike at the core of this experience, I had trouble with almost every mechanic in the game bugging out or being overly difficult due to technical issues. When you have to struggle this much to get a game to perform, it's tough to recommend, no matter how good the ideas behind it.

Cave Digger 2: Dig Harder is a tremendously fun, roguelike adventure with a hugely compelling neo-western, dieselpunk aesthetic that is best played with friends, so long as you can ignore the current choice selection of glitches and repetitive nature of its core gameplay loop. If you've ever wanted to play a SteamWorld Dig game in VR, this is currently the closest you'll get to it.

Although Cave Digger 2: Dig Harder's gameplay loop of mining to get gold to continue mining was an enjoyable and relaxing task for me, I can see how it might become tedious and monotonous for those that are less tolerant of repetitive tasks.