The Anomaly DLC for RimWorld comes out today. There's a lot to unpack but for now we'll focus on one interesting feature. It's all about ghouls.
Ghouls are former humans which have been turned into flesh-craving and maddened beings. This is a result of bioferrite being forced into their living bodies. They usually attack the colony without any warning and wield bioferrite spikes. They're aggressive while at the same time never feeling pain.
A Ghoul in Your Hands
While there's no question that ghouls are dangerous, they can actually be used to your benefit. There's a possibility some of them might crash land a transport pod. What happens usually is they start in shock but later recover and attack anyone they see. Before it recovers or wakes, you can capture it on a holding platform and do further study.
Your Own Ghoul
That being said, the game also allows you to create your very own ghouls through harvested bioferrite and a surgical procedure. Once you do this do, remember that it's not reversible.
Should the surgical process be a success, the once human individual is now a strong and relentless melee combatant. They're not only useful for fighting tougher enemies but also excellent when it comes to tanking in larger-scale battles. Ghouls only fight though and can't work. If they are killed, you can always revive them using an injection of a ghoul resurrection serum.
Improving the Ghouls
While ghouls can't carry any equipment, the unnatural resilience of their half-dead bodies allow them to be augmented with different dreadful implants. Protective implants improve the survivability of ghouls at the cost of speed. These can be done through a bioferrite armor plating or a metalblood heart.
Aggressive implants include a corrosive heart that allows ghouls to spray acid. There's also an adrenal heart where it can move and attack impossibly quickly. Another example are the barbed bioferrite spikes which improve the melee damage.
The DLC
The Anomaly DLC is a horror-themed expansion that's inspired by classics that include Cabin in the Woods, The Thing, The Cthulhu mythos, and Hellraiser, to name a few. In this one, your colonists have accidentally awakened a dark monolith and provoked an insane machine-mind of unfathomable power. This terrifying manifestations have started to haunt the world and to survive these strange happenings, you'll need to study the new phenomena and learn how to end the madness.
Learn more about the Anomaly DLC here.
RimWorld is available for the PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One.
