After over a month of waiting, it seems Hoxxes is finally fed up with our continued success. So, Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor’s most recent update, Update 02, promises to shake-up mining trips in a big way. Let’s rocket down there and take out some of the new fauna.
Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor Update 02, explained
Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor Update 02 is a pretty big deal, making major changes to the conclusions of every run and providing more information about your builds for all classes. While no new areas or weapons were added, the changes are significant enough to make things fresh.
New Survivor bugs—the good kind
Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor’s enemy density has skyrocketed, and these bugs are far from your typical foes. First of all, you might run into a pair of familiar foes from Deep Rock Galactic: The Dreadnought Twins. The Lacerator and Arbalest are a powerful pair, with one rushing you down while the other pelts you with missiles. The old Dreadnought is much more interesting now, featuring new rockslide and summoning attacks. Depending on your Hazard, you’re in for a bigger challenge right before the finish line.
And it’s not just the end of runs getting a glow-up, either. Hoxxes just got a new elite, the Q’ronar Shellback, and a new generic enemy type, the Huuli Hoarder. The Q’ronar promises to be quick and annoying at range while the Huuli Hoarder has its claws on a Loot Crate and forces you to chase it down. The new enemy variety promises to add a bit of spice to runs for players who’ve mastered the formula of a standard run.
Better UI and easier weapon management
If you’ve ever played Survivor, you’ve likely wondered how weapons work and why your weapon is doing what it’s doing. Thankfully, the team has figured it out. You can now bring up the Weapon Inspection screen while paused by clicking your weapon of choice. This brings up a menu that gives you a detailed breakdown of the damage the weapon deals, its firing speed, and any improvements given to it by your Overclocks. If you’re wondering how to make the most of every gun, grenade, and turret, you can finally do the math yourself.
In addition, two new keywords were added that you’ll now see during your runs. Pierce is the number of foes the weapon’s projectiles go through. Potency is a blanket buff to any status effect applied by the weapon. The latter is especially important for the new changes to the Freeze status.
Itty-bitty balance changes
Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor is relatively balanced by default, so most of the balance updates in Update 02 were added to shake up the boat a little bit. Fans of the game will now be blessed by 10 new Overclocks applied to different weapons—ranging from more beams on your Bug Taser to eight-directional shots on your Zhukov and Burst Fire Gun.
Little-used Overclocks and weapons got a minor bump this patch. Notably, weapon Overclocks that apply Fire, Acid, and Electrical stacks gained additional base Potency, making those pivot OCs much better. In addition, The Favorite—a common Overclock found on many powerful weapons—is now significantly better, affecting different stats than before the patch.
Freeze, on the other hand, applies fewer stacks when used on high fire-rate weapons, evening out the playing field compared to slower freezers. But, have no fear—freezing a foe looks a lot cooler. If that wasn’t enough, mining is easier around-the-board, with weapons being able to mine much faster and regenerating vines having less health. And several non-bitey bugs have been squashed, including a rather hilarious bug where you could climb back in the pod immediately after entering a new floor. No more ditching your shift early, miner.
Overall, this is a very successful patch bringing some much-needed variety to Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor, and a sign that the devs have their ear to the community. Hopefully, patches packed with content like this one—and the first—will keep coming.
