Deep Rock Galactic has confirmed Season 07, Season 08, and its first paid expansion DLC. The Ghost Ship crew announced all three on September 29, 2026 during Coffee Stain Publishing's The Big Break Showcase, and the post covers not only the next season but the shape of the game's next year.

For anyone who has played DRG for years, the news splits in two. Season 07, titled "Contingency Protocol," is aiming for a December 2026 release. Then in summer 2027, Season 08 arrives at the same time as an extensive gameplay expansion DLC that will cost real money. Every season so far has been free, so the second half of that plan is a change in how the game is funded.

The announcement covered two years at once

The Steam announcement went up alongside The Big Break Showcase, which premiered on Coffee Stain's YouTube channel on September 29 at 19:00 CEST. It promises "loads of new content" across Season 07, Season 08 and the expansion, and it introduced a "Seasons Ahead" teaser.

That was the entire reveal. The post then narrows to Season 07 and states plainly that Season 08 and the expansion will be discussed only after Season 07 ships.

Season 07 is aiming at December, with the usual caveat

Season 07 is called Contingency Protocol and has a release target of December 2026. The studio calls it substantial and says it concentrates on heavily requested features.

The premise gives the season its shape. Gravitational anomalies around Hoxxes IV, where geomagnetic poles appear to reverse inside a concentrated area, are linked in the post to a run of fatal Drop Pod crashes. Management has enacted the Contingency Protocol to find the cause, and crews will be sent to crash sites for forensic analysis while R&D gets more budget for new defensive technology.

Everything below that point carries the studio's standard warning that the content is a work in progress and may change.

Roughly 20 overclocks, aimed at secondary weapons

Season 07 adds about 20 new Overclocks, and this batch covers secondary weapons across the classes. The post names Neurotoxin Minelets, Dragonfire Shells and Dismantler Rounds, and says more are coming.

Spread across four classes, that works out to roughly five per class, although the post does not confirm an even split.

The perk system finally gets a sink for spare points

The perk rework answers a complaint that has built up over years of play. The studio's two goals are a larger perk pool and a fix for longtime players sitting on a large pile of unspent perk points.

Eleven new perks are in, some existing perks have been reworked, and a Perk Maintenance system arrives alongside them. It works like the existing Weapon Maintenance system: once every perk is unlocked, Perk Proficiency slots open up and take the leftover points in exchange for very small baseline stat increases. How small is not quantified.

Generic tokens labeled “PERK POINTS” flow toward two outlined boxes labeled “PROFICIENCY SLOTS.”
Concept diagram of the announced Perk Maintenance behavior: after all perks are unlocked, spare points feed Perk Proficiency slots for very small baseline stat buffs. The source gives no buff amount; these plain shapes are not game UI.

Tattoos, from a creature that would rather be left alone

Tattoos are the season's new cosmetic category. The announcement introduces the Kadoc Inker, a passive creature that camouflages itself against its surroundings and avoids conflict. Crews hunt them for ink sacs, which Management wants for industrial pigments. The post also mentions a rumor that the ink works for unsanctioned tattoos.

Spawn locations, rarity and how many tattoos a player can hold are not addressed.

Traversal tools become customizable

Platforms and ziplines get paintjobs, another item from the long-standing request list. Players will be able to match a traversal tool to an outfit or give it a look of its own. The post expects the system to connect to the Performance Pass and to the new perk maintenance system, which leaves the unlock path partly open.

The rest of the season reads like a normal DRG release. A new event sends crews to Drop Pod crash sites for the onboard Memory Cores, with a note that gravity may still be behaving oddly there. The Performance Pass is free again and carries a new signature weapon framework, Ironclad Tactical.

Season 08 and the expansion arrive together in summer 2027

This is the part that changes the model. In summer 2027 the studio plans to ship Season 08 and an extensive gameplay expansion DLC at the same time. Season 08 follows every previous season and stays completely free. The expansion will cost money.

The post does not hide the shift. It calls the paid expansion a first, says the budget lets the team be more ambitious, and describes it as the most direct way to support the work. Free updates continue alongside it. Season 08 is described as likely one of the smaller seasons that will still carry the essentials, with a story that builds on Season 07 so that players who skip the expansion still get free content.

What the post leaves open

The December window is an aim, not a date. The expansion has no price, no contents list and no release date beyond summer 2027, and preorder plans are unmentioned. Nothing states whether the expansion gates any 2027 seasonal content, and the post does not say whether a smaller Season 08 will run for a shorter time than usual.

Smaller gaps sit in the Season 07 details. Kadoc Inker spawns and drop rates are not described, the size of Perk Proficiency buffs is not given a number, and the traversal paintjob unlock path is described as likely rather than confirmed.

What there is to do now

Season 07 is still around two months out at the earliest, and the expansion is roughly a year away with nothing to evaluate yet. What is live now is the free seasonal content: Rocktoberfest ran for two weeks from September 24, with a new Freihand Tap Cap, another chance at a Lederhosen, and Best Wurst Beer back on tap.

One real deadline does appear in the same post. Preorders for the official Abyss Bar beer mugs from Scorched Steel close on October 31, 2026. Those are merchandise rather than game content.