Up until now, The Ascent DLC hasn't been that impressive or inspired, truth be told. The game - which is actually rather phenomenal in our book - serves up a one-of-a-kind twin-stick ARPG experience. True enough, it's a full-blooded gun-em-down at its core, but The Ascent also delivers a surprisingly atmospheric and immersive overworld for players to explore. If you've been waiting for more of that, now might be the time to splurge!
With the game's first anniversary having come and gone, the devs have left behind a cryptic message implying that something is afoot. We managed to snoop around and find a few extra tidbits of information, and it may well be that a genuine expansion pack is coming in the near future. If you, too, are ready to go back to the Veles arcology, this is stellar news indeed.
The Ascent is available right now via 2Game, and it comes highly recommended for fans of isometric shooters! It is, of course, not a fully fledged role-playing game. Instead, it's a straight-faced shooter with light RPG elements. It all works remarkably well together, however. Provided, of course, that you don't mind gunfire 'round the clock!
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The Ascent DLC Overview: Existing Stuff and Upcoming Goodies
While we've talked about The Ascent at some length already, there's much to say about it still. It's a punchy, visceral game that mops the floor with just about every other title in the niche right now. On top of its pedigree-level gunplay, The Ascent also has a stellar cover system, a wealth of content, and a number of visual elements that help it stand head and shoulders above its competitors.
The game is, for one, a fine example of the interrelationship between raytracing and upscaling technologies, and is beautifully rendered across the board. Amidst all this, it's also worth remembering that The Ascent is made by 12 people! The developer, Neon Giant, numbers roughly a dozen employees. This makes their achievement with The Ascent all the more impressive.
On that note, it's been about a year since the game's come out, and exciting news abound: DLC is coming. Or, rather, it might be a right and proper expansion pack!
Now, our job for the day is twofold. The first is to go over the existing Ascent DLC and explain its pros and cons. The second is to summarize what we've seen and heard about the mysterious upcoming DLC! Because - yes - there is news floating about, even though Neon Giant is trying to keep things on the hush.
What's The Current Ascent DLC Like?
It's fine! No, really, it's just fine for what it is. So far, Neon Giant has only really provided extra goodies for players looking to snag more guns, customization options, and the like. There's a bunch of completely free stuff that players can claim simply by playing the game:
These are neat, of course, but the paid packs are significantly more interesting. Not only do they add some novel guns to the mix, but they also come with full sets of armor and other assorted goodies, unlike the free DLC packs:
It's not difficult to notice, however, that these aren't needed to enjoy the game. It's a good approach to be sure, but a new SMG or a burst-firing bullpup isn't likely to entice players to keep coming back for more. Thankfully, the game did receive a bunch of rapid-fire upgrades immediately after launch. The New Game+ mode, for one, was launched at absolutely no additional charge for PC and PlayStation users.
In summary, then, The Ascent DLC hasn't been groundbreaking up until now. The goodies are nice to have and neat overall, but generally unnecessary. This may be changing in the near future, however.
The Ascent Anniversary DLC Plans
There are two big reasons why there's reason to believe the next piece of The Ascent DLC could be different from the aforementioned goodies. The first is, of course, the developers' own Twitter post. Not only does the voice-over plainly say that one of the game's main fixers has new contracts for the player, but there also would've been no real reason for Neon Giant to make a fuss around the anniversary celebrations. Unless big news were afoot.
The second reason was cleverly spotted by Reddit user WMXP, who noticed that there was an all-new area added to the game roughly half a year ago. This area features a curious docking station in the northmost corner of The Edge, close to the nearby Siege Mech spawn locations. WMXP believed that this may be the staging ground for a potential expansion early on, and this same location is featured in the developers' Tweet, too.
Is The Next Big Ascent DLC a Campaign Expansion?
It's important to make this perfectly clear, but Neon Giant is yet to chime in on what its mysterious Tweet means, exactly. To that end, it's worth taking this with the tiniest grain of salt! Still, however, it looks like a safe bet that there's going to be some sort of a campaign expansion coming soon-ish. Clearly, there's a "new contract" of some sort coming in. The game's finale certainly implies that the developers weren't done with The Ascent just yet, so this may well be the epilogue they've been waiting to create.
Whatever the case may be, it looks like it's going to be at a different scale than any piece of existing post-launch content for The Ascent. That alone has us excited about the possibilities. To say nothing of the fact that we're getting more stuff to do in this fascinating high-end cyberpunk universe.
What if it's just more guns, though?
On the off chance that it is, in fact, just more guns and goodies, that's fair as well. To be sure, many are bound to be disappointed if this ends up being the case, but The Ascent isn't a short game at all. For a high-end, quality-production indie, 12 hours' worth of content is a very solid offering. Getting more gadgets to destroy mooks with is always a good idea, we feel.
That being said, the developers' verbiage is rather clear. New contracts are coming. Really, the only question that remains unanswered is whether these contracts are large in scope or not. Because it's certainly not impossible that the game gets another substantial batch of content to continue its narrative.
On that note - we'll keep you up-to-date. If you're even remotely interested in one of the finest twin-stick shooters on the market, do yourself a favor and check The Ascent out. It's way better than anyone could've expected it to be. To say nothing of the developers' next unannounced project!
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Up until now, The Ascent DLC hasn’t been that impressive or inspired, truth be told. The game – which is actually rather phenomenal in our book – serves up a one-of-a-kind twin-stick ARPG experience. True enough, it’s a full-blooded gun-em-down at its core, but The Ascent also delivers a surprisingly atmospheric and immersive overworld for players […]
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