Deep Rock Galactic Season 5 tunnels through time itself and lets you replay old seasons

Deep Rock Galactic's Season 5 update - which launches in June 2024 - will allow you to reactivate and replay old seasons of Ghost Ship's celebrated dwarven asteroid mining sim. Here's how that works, direct from the bellowing bearded faces of the developers themselves. By which I mean, a new Steam blog. I'm not sure it's possible to get a good dwarven bellow going when you're talking about cosmetic unlock progression, but by all means reorganise this article into some kind of drinking song. Keep it clean, though - there may be elves reading.

As per the article header image, DRG Season 5 will add a Season Selection tab to the game's Season Terminal, allow you to pick out and reactivate any foregoing season. Doing this will kick your party and reload the Space Rig, as when disbanding a lobby, but you can invite friends back in afterwards, or make the new season lobby public. Party members won't need to have the same season active to join you, though the post notes that "because the Mission Terminal reflects the host's selected season [...] it's possible that a few individual missions might not show up for other players if they've got a different season active".

The developers are also replacing the existing Disable Season Content option with a Vanilla season that has no Performance Pass - it has a "balanced chance" to spawn Events and Warnings from every season. As with the current system, seasons will feature enemies and events from other seasons, but the probabilities of them appearing will be adjusted to reflect each season's focus - you're more likely to run into Rival Tech encounters and Rival Presence warnings in Season 2: Rival Incursion, for instance.

The new approach to Deep Rock Galactic seasons brings with it a new approach to cosmetics. As regards cosmetics from previous seasons that have been moved into the base game, these will be shunted back to their original spots in each season's Performance Pass or Cosmetic Tree. This includes any seasonal cosmetics that can currently be acquired from The Shop, Cargo Crates, or Lost Packs.

The developers note that "this means you can unlock these seasonal cosmetics directly, rather than relying on getting lucky with Cargo Crate / Lost Pack RNG [which] also cuts down on loot pool bloat, meaning you'll have higher odds of rolling everything else that does stay in the Crates and Packs."

Existing Performance Pass and Cosmetic Tree progress in each Season will be preserved after Season 5 launches. Matrix Cores infused with any seasonal cosmetics will be removed from your inventory and popped back into their respective Performance Passes and Cosmetic Trees, but you'll be awarded a different Matrix Core infused with a non-seasonal cosmetic item in return.

The developers stress that the upshot here is that for most players, nothing will really change. It's just about reorganising the fixtures. "You'll still be able to play with anyone you like, and every single item is still going to be unlockable for free," the post promises. "The only situation where you might want to do something is if there's some seasonal cosmetic in The Shop you've been eyeing, or if you've got one in an unforged Matrix Core. You might want to scoop those up before Season 05, otherwise you'll just have to unlock them in a different way."

Ghost Ship have many plans for the Deep Rock universe, with several projects in the works. There's the November 2024-bound Deep Rock Galactic: Rogue Core - a roguelike spin-off, as you've probably guessed. There's also Deep Rock Galactic Survivor, which is now in early access and, what's this, a hint at the end of that Steam blog about a possible announcement during the triple-I showcase on 10th April?