Let’s start with why we’re making a change.
Recently, we interviewed players who we believed would enjoy DREGS. People who had seen the game, understood what it was, and still decided not to play it. We wanted to understand what was holding them back. The most consistent answer was also the most useful: DREGS looked fun, but its overall structure felt too similar to games they already owned. They wanted something that gave them a more novel reason to jump in.
We believe the moment-to-moment experience in DREGS is inherently fun. Exploring hostile space facilities, solving environmental problems, carrying ridiculous objects, and watching your friends die avoidable deaths already creates the kinds of stories we want the game to deliver. But we also agree that the broader “go in, get junk, get out” loop has become familiar. Salvage runs can still be fun, but familiarity makes it harder for DREGS to establish an identity of its own.
So, we’re changing the structure around those experiences. We’re keeping the parts of DREGS that work: the co-op chaos, dangerous exploration, physical interactions, environmental challenges, salvage, and disposable clones. But, moving away from a loop defined almost entirely by collecting as much loot as possible before escaping.
This pivot involves two significant changes that we’ll deliver across two separate updates. This post covers the first up. We’ll talk about the second part, and how it expands the game further, in a future development blog.
We also learned that most players currently playing DREGS find the mission timer oppressive. The timer created pressure, but it often created the wrong kind of pressure. Instead of encouraging interesting decisions, it could hurry players past the best parts of a level. Exploration, experimentation, and the wonderfully bad ideas that make co-op games memorable were competing against a clock.
Our goal for the next update is to replace that time pressure with more meaningful choices. To do that, we’re removing the mission time limit. You’ll be able to spend as much time as you want aboard a derelict. Your mission will no longer be about gathering the largest pile of loot within a fixed window. Instead, it will be about working together to earn the highest score your crew can achieve.
Loot will still matter. Everything your crew successfully brings back to the shuttle will contribute to your mission’s base score. But loot will only be the beginning.
Throughout each mission, your crew will be able to complete different activities that unlock special score multipliers. Unlocking a multiplier isn’t enough on its own: someone must pick it up, carry it back to the shuttle, and install it in one of the available multiplier slots. Those slots are limited. In most missions, there will be more multipliers available than your shuttle can hold. Your crew will have to decide which activities are worth completing and which multipliers will produce the best final result.
That creates a different kind of pressure. Do you pursue another activity or return with what you already have? Which multipliers are worth occupying your limited slots? Is the potential score increase worth another trip into a dangerous part of the facility? And can the person carrying the multiplier make it back without becoming another workplace incident?
There won’t always be one correct answer. The best choice will depend on what your crew has collected, which activities you’ve completed, what remains unexplored, and how much further you’re willing to push your luck. The clock will no longer decide when the mission ends. You will.
Whenever your crew chooses to complete a mission, your final score will be evaluated against your previous best score for that particular mission. If you beat your personal best, the new score is saved. If you don’t, your existing record remains.
We want this to give each mission a longer life. Your first run might be about exploring and understanding how everything works. Later runs can become attempts to find better routes, pursue different activities, choose a stronger combination of multipliers, and squeeze out a new high score. Naturally, something will go catastrophically wrong.
Removing the timer does not mean removing tension. DREGS will still be filled with hostile entities, environmental hazards, dangerous machinery, scarce resources, and teammates whose judgment should never be trusted. The difference is that the mission will no longer say, “Leave because your time is up.” Instead, your crew will have to ask, “Are we satisfied with this score, or are we reckless enough to try for more?”
We’ve been testing this new structure internally, and the early results have been encouraging. We agree that it is more fun, creates better decisions, and gives the missions a character that feels distinct from anything else currently out there. Most importantly, it feels like a better fit for DREGS.
The game is at its best when a crew makes a plan, watches that plan disintegrate, improvises something even worse, and somehow limps back to the shuttle with a story worth retelling. This new structure gives those moments room to happen while still giving every mission a clear goal and a reason to improve.
This is the first part of a larger pivot, not the end of it. We’ll have more to share about the second major change in a future post.
As always, thank you to everyone playing DREGS, sharing feedback, and helping us understand where the game should go next. Early Access gives us the opportunity to listen, learn, and make meaningful changes and that is exactly what we’re doing.
The DREGS Team