Deep Rock Galactic Season 2: New Weapons, Performance Pass, And More

Deep Rock Galactic is gearing up for Rival Escalation, the official name of its second season. As of April 28, PC players can already access the new content. Those playing on console can jump into the new content one week later on May 5. This new update adds more story content, new secondary weapons and enemies, another 100 tiers of the free Performance Pass, plus a new web of cosmetic unlocks to chase down. The update is a big one, but if you’re new to the game, this feels like a welcoming jumping-on point. Here’s everything you need to know about Deep Rock Galactic Season 2.

New weapons

For many players, the headlining detail is going to be the new weapons. In Season 2, the dwarven miners have added four new secondary weapons to their equipment lockers. The class-based dwarves can elect to customize loadouts using these new toys, with each class receiving one new item that suits their skillset. The lineup includes:

• Nishanka Boltshark X-80: This crossbow can be equipped by the scout class and fires a wide range of elemental or heavy-duty bolts such as acid, fire, and triple bolts.
• Shard Diffractor: For the group’s engineer class, the Shard Diffractor fires a beam of powerful energy turning that which lies ahead of it into pulverized dust.
• Armskore Coil Gun: The gunner class gets this new coil gun, which is strong enough to punch through rock.
• Colette Wave Cooker: For the dwarven driller of your squad, this new gun acts like a projectile microwave, cooking targets from the inside out. We assume that, for once, the middle won’t be left frozen still.

Collectively, these new guns seem aimed to give each class a taste of other classes without going so far as being considered multi-classing. You can equip the gun right for you in the equipment menu from the game’s main hub.

Season 2 Performance Pass

A new season means a new Performance Pass, and another 100 tiers of free currency, cosmetics, and minerals with which you can unlock upgrades and even more cosmetics. This season’s Performance Pass highlights once more the game’s penchant for humor, with some truly absurd beard styles available. In addition to those, a few future favorites are up for grabs too, such as the Jason Voorhees-style hockey mask or a cyberpunk-ish eyewear.

In addition to the Performance Pass, some cosmetics can now be bought with phazyonite, one of the elements you’ll earn on your adventures and in the game’s cosmetic mastery system. Ghost Ship Games said it made this switch in order to allow players to buy cosmetics without sacrificing beer, upgrades, and promotions, which previously used some of the same minerals as cosmetic rewards. If it sounds like the team is planting seeds to eventually sell phazyonite, it rather emphatically refuted the idea. “We have no plans for monetizing this in any way,” said Ghost Ship Games in a press release.

Any rewards you were unable to claim in the game’s debut season can be found in Cargo Crates, Lost Packs, Cosmetic Cores, and The Shop. You can check out all 100 tiers of the new Season 2 Performance Pass rewards in the image gallery below. But first, here’s a look at the Season 2 cosmetic unlock tree:

New missions, enemies, and boss battle

A new type of seasonal event, or mission type, comes to DRG in Season 2. The “Rival Signal” event tasks you with going into the mines and shutting down communication relays being set up by the unnamed “Rivals” who seem to be plotting things in the background of the first two seasons of the game. This involves halting the central router, hacking antenna nodes, and stealing the data before the system self-destructs to keep the secrets intact. As always, it will require close collaboration from all dwarves to get back to base with all beards still in the proper places.

A new type of enemy swarm also debuts in Season 2 as Rival robots can now be found drilling through the tunnels just as you and your team would. If these smaller, more numerous robots don’t pose much of an issue, the new Rival Nemesis boss may. This squid-like robot may come upon your dig site and challenge you for your loot in some of the game’s procedurally-generated levels.