5 Best Features In The New Deep Rock Galactic Update

Deep Rock Galactic asks the question, what if Tolkien’s Dwarves from Lord of the Rings went to space and had to fight off Starship Troopers-style hordes of alien bugs while making a salary mining on a planet full of hostile environments? It turns out the answer is it would be a pretty fun co-op experience, with a mix of interesting traversal mechanics and gun-play with plenty of customization options.

And, with the new Rival Incursion Update, a Rival Company is introduced, undermining Deep Rock’s operations on Hoxxes with drone technology. This update adds new features to keep the game fresh and interesting for players and will keep them playing for some time.

5 Performance Pass

Deep Rock has taken the approach of other games like Apex Legends and included a Seasonal Performance Pass. With daily challenges, gamers will be incentivized to play certain mission types in certain biomes as certain classes. As with other Battle Passes, this adds a metagame where players can plan out to complete multiple challenges at once in order to maximize their rewards, and earn cosmetics with limited availability.

The Performance Pass is a fun and engaging way to keep players checking back each day to earn rewards, and best of all there’s no additional purchase required for it. With any luck, and if the feedback is positive, Ghost Ship Games will keep this approach going forward with future seasons and events.

4 New Enemies: Rival Tech

In a departure from the typical alien bug-type enemies, the Rival Incursion update adds a new class of enemies. The new Rival Company on Hoxxes is undercutting the dwarven mining operation of Deep Rock, and they are entirely made up of robot drones. Reminiscent of the Borg from Star Trek, these Rival Tech enemies allow for more varied gameplay with stationary turrets as well as mobile, swarming shredder drones.

There are even Patrol Bots, which have the chance to fall into a downed state instead of being destroyed, during which players can approach and enter a hacking minigame to convert the drone to fight alongside them. On top of introducing new mechanics, this new enemy type adds a nice change in aesthetic from the rabid Glyphids, as the Rival Tech drones are much more sleek and calculating.

3 New Mission Events

Now during the Rival Incursion season, there is a chance each mission for a Rival Prospector Drone or Prospector Data Deposit to spawn on the map. The Prospector Drone is simply a combat encounter, but it will provide a challenge for players as the Drone will periodically spawn more, smaller drones when its health gets low enough. With the Data Deposit event, players will have to call down a hacking bot and set up beacons connecting to the Deposit.

After setting up, the hacking bot must be defended from Glyphids and Rival Tech alike until the hacking has finished. Both events reward players with a Data Cell which, when collected, will count towards earning rewards for the Performance Pass. Similar to the new mission type, these events will be more frequent during the season but persist as a chance to occur even after the season is finished.

2 New Mission Type: Industrial Sabotage

In a new mission, a Rival Tech prospecting operation appears on Hoxxes. The dwarves of Deep Rock must locate and open a Rival Tech Data Vault and retrieve the contents inside. This mission is unlocked by completing the Conquer Hoxxes assignment, and once unlocked it will be consistently available on the mission select table throughout the season.

The players will have to hack two Data Deposits, like the new mission event, in order to unlock the Vault and disrupt the Rival Corporation’s interference with Deep Rock. Though it is a bit lengthy, the mission is capped off with a fun boss fight against the Data Vault’s Caretaker, during which players will have to avoid Doctor Octopus-style mechanical arms and waves of spawning drones while exposing the Caretaker’s core. Once the Caretaker is defeated, the Data Vault will open, rewarding players with a Data Rack, which counts towards rewards in the Performance Pass.

1 New Weapons (And Overclocks)

Surely the newest feature that players will get the most enjoyment out of is the slew of new weapons for each class. This update adds the LOK-1 Smart Rifle, the Corrosive Sludge Pump, the “Hurricane” Guided Rocket System, and the DRAK-25 Plasma Carbine. All these weapons contend with those previously available and offer fun new mechanics that shake up how each class can be played.

Once unlocked, players will be able to automatically lock on to enemies, cover them in acidic melting sludge, fly controlled rockets toward them, and shoot rapid-fire plasma projectiles at them. While cosmetics and a ladder-type engagement feature are fun, unlocking these new weapons along with their mods and overclocks, and planning new builds around them will definitely be what keeps players interested in this co-op shooter for the near future.