Dwarf strategy game Drill Rift shamelessly mines Baldur's Gate 3's dice rolls

It's not often that you see a lot of crossover between strategy games and RPGs. Perhaps both will involve turn-based combat, or may touch on similar themes. But new strategy game Drill Rift has gone for a different approach: shamelessly mining Baldur's Gate 3's dice rolling mechanic. Put your pitchfork away, I'm not suggesting that Baldur's Gate invented rolling—that was obviously James Workshop in 1983—but the presentation of the D20 mechanic is practically identical in the two games.

At first glance, Drill Rift seems like a pretty standard strategy game. You mine resources, upgrade your machinery, and keep on digging. Where most colony sims involve controlling a city that sprawls ever outwards, Drill Rift pushes you ever downwards.

That comes with risks, though. If you delve too greedily, and too deep, you may come face to face with the monsters that inhabit the Earth's core. This is where those dice rolls come in. You can send your dwarfs to 'events,' and while it's unclear exactly what these will entail, you roll a die to determine their success.

Like any good role-playing game (or, indeed, colony sim), your dwarfs' stats affect the outcome. Roll a nat 20 and your expedition will be successful. Roll too low, however, and your dwarf will go mad. Beasts can track the madness back to your colony, where they will lay siege. It's an interesting mechanic made more interesting still by its use in a strategy game, but the presentation could have been a bit more original than directly copying Larian's RPG.

There's no Balrog of Morgoth to be found in Drill Rift, but the game takes liberally from numerous bastions of popular culture. You can do mining dwarfs without it being Tolkien, sure, but it will raise eyebrows if you call your currency Mythril. Similarly, there are countless ways to represent dice rolls without resorting to a Baldur's Gate 3 rip-off.

However, I'm hopeful that Drill Rift's turn-based strategy gameplay will be enough to set it apart from its rivals and overcome its more derivative features. Its blend of strategy and random chance should prove interesting, if nothing else.

Drill Rift is due to release later this year. You can play the Steam demo from Saturday, September 20 onwards. Find it here.

If you can't wait until then, check out some of the best fantasy games for a similar experience. Our list upcoming PC games also has plenty to look forward to.

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