The Ascent expands its cyberpunk chaos with melee combat and new missions in story DLC

Today is a good day for fans of last year’s GOTY contender The Ascent, the top-down shooter from Neon Giant. The game has made huge strides since its release last summer.

Most notably, The Ascent arrived on PlayStation, and received various bits of smaller add-ons. But no meaningful new content made it into the game since then, and this is about to change.

Neon Giant today revealed Cyber Heist, a major new DLC for The Ascent. The add-on arrives August 18, priced $10/€10/£8. Cyber Heist adds new main and side mission chains, set in a new Malhorst-Gelb-owned arcology. The story takes place after the events of the main campaign, with Kira offering you a new job.

Playable solo or in co-op, the new missions are only accessible after completing the main campaign – but only the host needs to have finished the campaign. Along the way, of course, you’ll cross paths with new enemies, get introduced to new characters, and explore new environments.

There’s a host of new weapons and tech to acquire, most notably advanced melee combat. The trailer shows the new melee moves briefly, and it looks to be a viable style of play that could sit alongside ranged weapons.

If you’ve yet to play The Ascent, you may want to pick up the Cyber Edition, which includes the main game, all previously-released DLC packages, as well as Cyber Heist. It’ll cost you $45/€45/£37.

We’re big fans of The Ascent around here. We awarded it 4/5 in our review, and it ended up on James’ GOTY list. We spoke to developer Neon Giant about releasing its first game as a team, and delivering AAA quality on budget.

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