Deep Rock Galactic, a co-op game about dwarves in space mining and fighting bugs, has been out on PS4 and PS5 for a couple of months now. And it was amazing to see so many new players joining us in the caves of Hoxxes. Whether you picked up the game when it was available on PlayStation Plus or you just bought it recently, welcome!
The release of DRG on PlayStation happened during our first season in the game, and we’ll be releasing the second on May 5: Season 02 – Rival Escalation. This installment includes four new Secondary weapons, and that gave us the opportunity to design them with the DualSense wireless controller from the start.
When we were working on the PlayStation DRG version, we decided to use the DualSense controller features as much as possible to enhance the experience of the weapons in the game (see our previous blog post on How DualSense Controller Enhances Deep Rock Galactic’s Mining and Combat). Below, you can read how we used the DualSense controller features for each of the new weapons.
ArmsKore Coil Gun
Haptic feedback helps bring a sense of power to each gun. Use the Coil Gun in this New Season: Although small and compact, this gun packs a lot of power. And with the haptic feedback, we were able to really get a feel for it, with the clock getting stronger in the charge phase, conveying volatile, high amounts of energy, released with a big jolt.
Nishanka Boltshark X-80
The Boltshark is one of those more subtle and greatly benefits from the finer details possible that haptic feedback offers. While it’s quieter than the others, it does give us more room to emphasize the small details of the crossbow bolts, bolts in place, and strings that snap into the barrel when fired.
The Shard Diffractor
The Shard Diffractor is the simplest of the clever designs, firing a continuous laser with so much power that the player can hardly stand on their feet. However, transmitting that power for such a long time would be too much for other seconded engineers. We decided to use a softer rumble on the beam and emphasize the strength of the impact. Due to the detailed haptic feedback, strong impact will give a strong feeling.
Colette Wave Stove
The corrugated iron is very different from other weapons, having no ammo but instead acts as a dangerous flashlight. Therefore, we wanted to give the impression of small parts moving around inside the gun as it fired without masking the overall vibration from the weapon. That’s the level of detail that haptic feedback can produce.
The DualSense controller really helps us make each weapon feel different in the game. When designing each thing, every aspect of the development emphasized the feeling we wanted players to have when shooting it. From mechanics, models, animations, sounds, effects, etc. We also perform Overclocking for each weapon allowing players to customize each weapon’s effect through equalization.
The most extreme overclock, Unstable, helps us emphasize the theme for each weapon. Each of the weapons above comes with new overclocking features. An example is the Blistering Necrosis for the Colette Wave Cooker, which has a chance to inflict weak points on enemies you hit, while increasing heat generation and reducing cooldown.
Season 02 launches May 5 on PS4 and PS5. We look forward to trying these new weapons and experiencing how the DualSense controller really brings each weapon to life.
