Hello Survivors,

Welcome to the fourth major update for Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor: “Into the Blue”. Management has been busy cutting through red tape and can finally open operations in a new biome: Azure Weald. This biome is as beautiful as it is deadly and features new enemy types, glowing crystal formations, and bouncy membranes.

In addition, we’ve picked up strange readings from the caves that seem to alter the working conditions. We’re calling these phenomena “mutators” and you will experience them in one of the two new game modes. To motivate employees, Deep Rock Galactic has declassified your Employee Review Score.

In addition, we’ve added new artifacts, milestones, achievements, and the usual splash of balance changes and bug fixes.

Features

New Biome: Azure Weald

The pod is ready to take you to a beautiful new biome on Hoxxes IV - the Azure Weald! This is a surprisingly wet blue cave with luminescent plants, softly glowing crystals, and ferocious Glyphid hordes.

There are some curiosities of the Azure Weald that you will find nowhere else. Glowing crystal formations will heal you (and Glyphids) when standing near them, and with a lack of Red Sugar in the biome, you will need them. There are also organic membranes on the ground that can launch you in the air when you walk on them - great for a quick getaway.

The bugs in Azure Weald have a slightly different spawn behavior. Instead of a steady trickle of Glyphids and a few waves throughout the dive, you will have periods of almost calmness in the Azure Weald, but the waves are larger and more intense. The new Glyphids native to the biome are:

All-New Enemy: Glyphid Warden

When stationary, the Glyphid Warden sets up a Mind-Link that makes all nearby Glyphids take much less damage.

New Enemy Variant: Glyphid Mini Exploder

These fast little buggers blow up just as well as their bigger brothers, though they seem to not be as effective at thinning out swarms. But they do come in larger packs. Fun!

New Enemy Variant: Big Praetorian

Bigger and stronger Praetorians with 2100 HP (our astrobiologist back at HQ wanted to call this one “Praetorian 1.5” but marketing went with “Big Praetorian” instead)

System: Mutators

Strange things are happening on Hoxxes and we’ve seen reports of mission conditions not acting as we’re used to. We’re calling these phenomena “Mutators” and they act like modifiers, either positive or negative, that you can encounter. With Update 4, mutators are available in the two new game modes ‘Vanguard Contracts’, ‘Lethal Operations’ and in the new ‘Mutator Madness’ Anomaly Dives.

Game Mode: Vanguard Contracts

A Vanguard Contract is a special mission that features a specific set of mutators and special run conditions where the biome, class mod, and starting weapon will be predetermined. The Vanguard Contracts are available from Hazard 2 and reset daily, offering a novel way to engage with the hostiles of Hoxxes.

Example: Crystalline Caverns, Maintenance Worker Engineer with the Cryo Cannon as a starting weapon, only able to equip [COLD] Weapons, and a list of positive and negative mutators.

Game Mode: Lethal Operations

Lethal Operations are similar to Vanguard Contracts, but much more challenging and on a weekly timer. These are meant to test even the most senior dwarves and might require some strategizing to overcome. Lethal Operations are only available on Hazard 4 & 5, and while the biome is locked, you can pick which class and class mod to bring to the mission.

Since Vanguard Contracts and Lethal Operations change every day/week, we are not adding a reward that will make you feel obligated to play them for fear of missing out on powerful upgrades. We have instead opted to make the dives give a bonus to Rank XP and Credits the first time you complete them. This should make the game mode entirely optional.

Anomaly Dive: Mutator Madness

There’s a new anomaly dive available for employees who want to truly explore which mutators Hoxxes has to offer. When diving into the mutator madness anomaly you will pick a new set of mutators before each stage. Some are active only for that stage, while others are permanent throughout the dive, building an increasingly difficult dive.

Employee Review Score

The DRG Employee Review score has finally been declassified. No longer only used by HR for internal review of employees, you have now been granted access to view your score summary for every dive. The score is based on your overall performance in terms of kills, mining, main- and secondary objective completion, run completion speed etc. We hope that you are as motivated as we are by seeing numbers go up, and that the Employee Review Score will spark some friendly competition.

Azure Weald Biome Mastery

• As always, 10 stages instead of 5
  
• Mastery Bonus: +% XP Gain and increased luck in Azure Weald across all game modes

Hardcore Azure Weald Anomaly

• Unlock 5 additional Morkite Reactor Cores in the Hardcore Azure Weald Anomaly

New artifacts:

• Pick Axtender: Increases your reach when mining
  
• Tactical Cookie: Heals you for 50% of max HP when entering the Drop Pod
  
• Jet Boots: Allows you to make a quick escape when taking damage, 20 seconds cooldown
  
• 5 Leaf Clover: +15 luck, Increases your Luck by 20 whenever you reroll anything (for 5 sec)
  
• Huuli Bait: Lure out a bunch of Huuli Hoarders - Gotta catch them all!

New milestones

• Clear ALL rock and stone in a Main Mission stage
  
• Heal 500 HP during a single stage
  
• Destroy 200 rock and stone in a single dive by jumping on them
  
• Select Luck upgrades 5 times in a single dive
  
• Kill 3 Huuli Hoarders during a single dive
  
• Acquire 10 total Mastery Points
  
• Complete a dive in Azure Weald on Hazard 3+

New Steam Achievements

The 5 new Artifacts are all tied to new Milestones, but they also each have a Steam Achievement. Additionally, we have added a new Steam Achievement for completing a Hazard 5 dive in the Azure Weald.

Improvements & Fixes

• Added new voice lines when selecting Missions
  
• Improved the tooltip of several artifacts to show how many stacks they will apply
  
• Fixed an issue where the amount of biome goal points did not always match the amount of biome goals completed
  
• (Artifact) Ancient Knowledge: Fixed a bug where the XP gained would scale with XP gain, resulting in more than the advertised 3 levels
  
• Fixed an issue where the player could get locked on a black screen after loading into a stage, if they managed to level up in the final drop pod in their previous run
  
• Added the missing [CONSTRUCT] tag to Shredder Swarm Grenade
  
• Fixed an issue where getting the Refrigerated Gunpowder overclock on the GK2 would not change the bullet color
  
• Fixed an issue that caused the Voltaic Shock Fence to restart its reload timer when placing the last turret
  
• Voltaic Shock Fence should now properly scale with the lifetime stat
  
• Incendiary Grenade and Neurotoxin Grenade’s ground zones should now properly scale with the lifetime stat
  
• Damage from Magma Core hot rocks no longer triggers the damage vignette
  
• Fixed a silly ordering of class select buttons - they now match the unlock order
  
• Updated Milestone UI
  
• Added fat dwarf fingerprints on UI elements
  
• Fixed an issue where pressing ESC (or a similar back-action) while loading the menu, could result in a weird UI mess
  
• Driller Mining VFX is now a lot more… drillery

Balance

• Red Vines in Hollow Bough can now be mined, but doing so will hurt
  
• (Artifact) Gold Tipped Bullets: Moved from Rare to Epic rarity
  
• (Artifact) Clipboard of Grudges: Increased minimum XP yield to 8 and max to 14. Added cooldown of 0.5 sec.
  
• (Artifact) Pay2Win - Rework
  
  • Old: Continuously drains 50 gold every 50 seconds to increase damage by 100%
    
  • New: Increases your damage by 3% whenever you reroll anything
• To make room for the new Mutator Anomaly, unlock requirements for Hardcore, No Movement and Vanilla have all been increased by 5 mastery points
  
• Biome unlock requirements have been changed to make room for Azure Weald
  
• Colette Wave Cooker
  
  • Decreased potency to 28 (was 32)
    
  • Increased base damage to 110 (was 94)
    
  • Decreased cold stacks applied by unstable OC Thermal Oscillator by 50%
• “Bulldog” Heavy Revolver:
  
  • Increased pierce to 20 (was 12)
    
  • Increased base range to 14 (was 12)
    
  • Changed shot interval to 1,2 (was 0,8)
    
  • Increased damage to 100 (was 72)
• Arc-Tek Cryo Guard:
  
  • Increased move speed to 14 (was 12)
    
  • Personal Space Invaders overclock
    
    • Decreased range to -75% (was -50%)
      
    • Added +2 drone count
  
  
• The following weapon masteries and class mod masteries have been moved to the Azure Weald:
  
  • Jury-Rigged Boomstick
    
  • Seismic Repulsor
    
  • Krakatoa Sentinel
    
  • “Thunderhead” Heavy Autocannon
    
  • “Stubby” Voltaic SMG
    
  • Arc-Tek Cryo Guard
    
  • LOK-1 Smart Rifle
    
  • Nishanka Boltshark X-80
    
  • Scout Recon
    
  • Driller Foreman

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We’ve partnered up with the fine folks at Pugstorm and Fireshine Games to offer you a limited-time bundle with Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor and Core Keeper. If you’re a fan of mining long tunnels and slaying monsters (and if you’re reading this, there’s a very good chance that you are). If you already own DRG:S, you can ‘Complete the Set’ and get 10% discount on Core Keeper.

https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/45407