Since it's official release in May of 2020, Deep Rock Galactic has cultivated a dedicated modding community creating new experiences within Ghost Ship Games' first-person shooter. Anyone with interest in these mods can just hop online to find some of the ones available, ranging from simple currency modifiers to populating maps with more enemies to up the difficulty. Ghost Ship Games is planning to expand this support in one of the game's next updates and is now giving fans a taste of what's in store for mod support.
Ghost Ship Games outlined the changes to mod support in a post on Deep Rock Galactic's Steam page. The studio starts by thanking fans for their patience and saying the mod changes, originally set to arrive as part of Update 34, are coming together. In particular, it has nailed down the modding platform the studio feels will best support the game and its fans along with server support and how fans will be able to enjoy these mods in-game.
The mod platform Ghost Ship said it's going with is Mod.io, a relatively newer mod platform and spiritual successor to the Mod DB platform from some of its original creators. Mod.io has already amassed a small catalogue of games using the platform for mod support, including SnowRunner, Totally Accurate Battle Simulator, and Insurgency: Sandstorm. While Ghost Ship did not go into detail about how Mod.io will work with Deep Rock Galactic, the studio said it was confident in its choice after comparing the platform to other options and was excited for fans to see how it works with the game.
However, Ghost Ship Games did take a deeper dive into how server support and game saves will work once the changes hit. The studio said it's developing "approval categories" and will fall under "sandbox," "approved for progression," and "fully approved" categories. Ghost Ship said "sandbox" will be the most common category mods will fall under, and players can save progress as a "modded save," but it will not save to their main progression. This is due to most mods in this category affecting Deep Rock Galactic's rewards and unlockables in a more direct way. If a mod is "approved for progression," a game cannot be saved to any main servers since the mod changes the gameplay experience, but rewards will still count toward main progression. Third, "fully approved" are the least intrusive mods which can be saved to a normal game and includes mods meant to improve accessibility or graphical performance.
Ghost Ship Games added while it is working on the mod support, it is already evaluating pre-existing mods and categorizing them based on these new outlines. The team said most current mods will likely fall into the "approved for progression," which will likely be a welcome sign of relief for players worried about progression.
Deep Rock Galactic is currently available to download on PC and Xbox One.
Source: Steam