The free Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor Masteries update is here. It comes with two new and incredibly challenging game modes, a new limited currency, more meta upgrades, extra artifacts, achievements, and a slew of bug fixes. If you’re looking to get back into the roguelike twin-stick shooter, or fancy a new challenge, now’s the time to dive in.
The first new game mode in Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor is the titular Masteries, which challenge you “to complete a dive with new rules,” according to the developer, Funday Games. The roguelike game‘s latest update adds new weapon, class mod, and biome masteries, adjusting everything from stage count to the number of supply pods.
“There are 42 Weapon Masteries, one for each weapon, and they unlock once you’ve reached level 12 with a specific weapon,” Funday Games writes. “In a weapon’s Mastery, you enter a three-stage dive where you are only able to use that weapon, and no other weapon slots will unlock in the dive. If you complete the run, you will unlock a permanent upgrade to the weapon that will apply to all game modes. This reward scales with the Mastery’s hazard level.”
After a Hazard 2 dive, you get the class mod masteries, and each comes with extra challenges, like the inability to heal during the level, for example. These combat-oriented masteries also have smaller stages, fewer minerals to mine, and fewer supply drops, but completing a class mod mastery will give that mod a permanent buff across all game modes.
Once you beat a biome on hazard three you unlock the attached biome mastery, where you need to tackle ten stages instead of the usual five and are awarded with a permanent upgrade to that biome when successful.
There’s also another new game mode in Anomalies. These are even more challenging modes, with plenty of twists. The No Movement mode sees you only able to move for the first five and last 30 seconds of a round, Vanilla removes all meta upgrades and mastery bonuses, Hardcore starts you with 10% of your max HP and reduces all HP upgrades by 10%, Bloody Learner ups experience gain by 100% but has you take damage whenever you level up.
The Masteries patch also adds a new limited currency, Morkite Reactor Cores. This currency is found during Anomalies and Masteries, and is used to unlock new meta upgrades and the last stages of older ones. Funday Games has, in turn, refunded all meta currency to make room for this new drop.
“Players who have previously ‘completed’ the meta progression will find that they can no longer buy all meta upgrades until they obtain Morkite Reactor Cores. This is part of the early access process, and we hope that you’ll see it as a challenge instead of a loss,” Funday Games writes in the patch notes.
If this has you wanting to try the game for yourself we’ve already broken down the best Deep Rock Galactic Survivor classes, or you can test your mettle with the toughest survival games around right now.
You can also follow us on Google News for daily PC games news, reviews, and guides, or grab our PCGN deals tracker to net yourself some bargains.
