Deep Rock Galactic Hoxxes Halloween 2026: Dates and New Hat

Hoxxes Halloween is coming back to Deep Rock Galactic, and Ghost Ship Games has confirmed exactly when the dwarves start trading pickaxes for pumpkins. The seasonal event launches on Thursday, October 22 at 13:00 CET and runs for two weeks, giving every miner a fresh hat to chase, a returning catch-up assignment for older cosmetics, and the yearly return of the game's flying skulls.

01When Hoxxes Halloween 2026 Starts and Ends

According to Ghost Ship Games' official preview post, the event begins Thursday, October 22 at 13:00 CET and closes on November 5 at 13:00 CET, a two-week window. The studio frames it as the usual seasonal refresh rather than a content patch: no new missions or biomes, just a limited-time assignment list, cosmetic rewards, and a decorated Space Rig.

If you're mid-dive when the event flips on, expect the usual seasonal rollout: the assignment list updates automatically, and a maintenance window around the 13:00 CET switchover is typical for past Hoxxes Halloweens, though Ghost Ship hasn't published separate downtime details for 2026.

02What's New: The Straw Boss Hat

This year's headline reward is a new piece of headgear called the Straw Boss. Ghost Ship's own description leans into the mystery angle, joking that "nobody cares who you are until you put on the mask." You unlock it by completing a special Hoxxes Halloween assignment before the event ends on November 5 — miss that window and the hat goes back into the vault until next year's event.

As with every seasonal cosmetic in Deep Rock Galactic, the Straw Boss is purely visual. It doesn't touch loadouts, perks, or Overclocks, so there's no mechanical reason to rush it beyond wanting the hat before the clock runs out.

03Catching Up: Last Year's Horrors and Old Hats

New and returning dwarves who skipped previous Hoxxes Halloweens get a second assignment, Last Year's Horrors, which hands out every past Halloween hat in one go once completed. Ghost Ship has run this catch-up path in prior years too, so if you're only just getting back into the caves — maybe after picking the game up during a Steam sale, or coming off a session of Rogue Core — this is the fastest way to fill out your cosmetic collection without waiting for the event to loop around again.

Both assignments are account-wide and don't require any specific hazard level, so solo players and full four-dwarf squads can clear them at their own pace before the November 5 cutoff.

04Flying Skulls and the Double Performance Point Bonus

The spooky skulls that haunt Hoxxes IV during the event are back, and Ghost Ship is playing up an in-universe joke about "R&D investigating the patterns" behind their appearances — wink, it's Halloween. Mechanically, the payoff is simple: bring a skull back to the drop pod and your whole team gets a Double Performance Point Bonus for that mission, stacking on top of whatever XP you'd normally earn from completing an assignment.

That bonus makes Hoxxes Halloween one of the better two-week windows to burn through Promotion ranks or push a class you've been neglecting, since the skull bonus applies regardless of hazard level or mission type.

05What's Next for Deep Rock Galactic

Halloween is a free seasonal event, not part of the larger content roadmap Ghost Ship laid out at Coffee Stain's Big Break Showcase in late September. That showcase confirmed Season 07, subtitled "Contingency Protocol," is targeting a December 2026 release with around 20 new secondary-weapon Overclocks and a reworked perk system, followed by a Season 08 and a paid expansion further out. None of that lands during the Halloween window — it's worth knowing the two are separate so you don't expect new Overclocks or perk changes to show up alongside the pumpkins.

In the meantime, the Haunted Hub decorations and the limited-time assignments are the full scope of what's changing in the caves for the next two weeks. Ghost Ship has been consistent about running Hoxxes Halloween as a cosmetic-only event rather than a balance patch, so there's no need to brace for weapon or enemy changes before diving in on October 22 — your current loadout, Overclocks, and perk setup carry over exactly as they are.

That consistency is part of why the event is worth planning around even if you've already got every past hat: it's a reliable two-week stretch where the only real decision is which objectives to prioritize, not which new mechanic to relearn. For squads that have been sitting on an unused Promotion or a class they rarely play, stacking Double Performance Point missions during the event is a low-friction way to make progress before Season 07 changes the perk economy later this year.

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