Deep Rock Galactic enforcers Coffee Stain Publishing and Ghost Ship Games have officially announced the launch date and details of Season 02: Rival Escalation. Arriving on Steam on 28th April 2022 and console on 5th May, Season 02: Rival Escalation features another completely free Performance Pass, a new enemy type to encounter and exciting secondary weapons for each class. Among the new content for players to unlock, there is a significant update to the cosmetic system, as well as plenty of highly requested quality of life improvements.
Since launching in 2020, the multi-award-winning co-op mining shooter continues to go from strength to strength, and its new Seasons format enables brand new players and Deep Rock veterans to all find something new in the mines of Hoxxes IV.
Updated Performance Pass and Cosmetic Tree
The Performance Pass is back and better than before, with around twice as many bonuses up for grabs for employees uprooting the robotic menace down in the mines. Following the same format as Season 01, players can take part in any missions to rank up through levels of the Performance Pass to earn Scrip, or complete the new special event waiting for them on Hoxxes IV. Once Scrip has been earned, unique Beards, Paintjobs, Helmets, Resource Caches and Weapon Frameworks for all guns can be unlocked through the tree as the season progresses.
Players who haven’t managed to complete Season 01 need not worry about FOMO though, as any and all unlocked cosmetics will be scattered throughout Lost Packs, Cargo Crates, Matrix Cores and the Shop in the game to obtain at a later time.
All-New Rival Signal Season Event and Enemy
Season 02: Rival Escalation picks up where Season 01 left off, as the Rivals are stepping-up their prospecting efforts on Hoxxes IV! To stop them in the Rival Signal season event, players have to race against the clock and oncoming bullets, interrupting the operations of the Rival Communications Router, obtaining the data cell within the router and shutting it down before it combusts! But there’s more to worry about than just their communications. The Rivals have unleashed additional hordes of robots within the caves of Hoxxes, but don’t let that serve as a distraction because beyond that lies a new, deadly nemesis designed to lure miners in and hunt them down systematically with giant claws and deadly intent.
New Secondary Weapons introduced
To fight off the swathes of Rival Robots and the Rival Nemesis lurking in Hoxxes IV, players will have access to four new secondary weapons, with one for each class of player. Gunners can employ the Armskore Coil Gun strong enough to break clean through solid rock, Engineers have the incinerating Shard Diffractor that will detonate anything in its path, Scouts are able to switch up between a wide selection of customised bolts with the Nishanka Boltshark X-80, and finally, Drillers can bring the heat by harnessing the power of the Colette Wave Cooker. These four new weapons all come equipped with full upgrade trees, weapon frameworks and paintjobs to find, and around 24 brand new weapon overclocks to be uncovered.
DLC and Shop Updates
Season 02 also includes a brand-new “Robot Rebellion” DLC pack to deck out their weapons and armour in the remains of the rival robots defeated in Season 01. The shop is being updated, with the implementation of a new Cosmetic Mastery system and, Phazyonite, a new option for payment instead of Credits. This new currency can be earned by advancing in Cosmetic Mastery levels, and can also be acquired in the mines. This has been implemented to allow employees’ wages to go a little further when purchasing weapon upgrades, and more importantly: Beer.
Alongside all these additions, Season 02 also includes a number of bug fixes, tweaks, and behind-the-scenes improvements as always.
Søren Lundgaard, CEO of Ghost Ship Games comments: “We wanted players embarking on this next chapter of Deep Rock Galactic to continue the narrative we started in Rival Incursion. Rival Escalation continues our commitment to offering exceptional content to all our players, and creating new opportunities for our audience to engage with other players in the complex caverns of Hoxxes IV.”
Season 02 is available on Steam Experimental from 19th April, and will officially launch on 28th April 2022 on Steam and 5th May on Xbox and PlayStation. Deep Rock Galactic is available now on Steam, Xbox One, Xbox Series, PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5.
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