[Update #2]: The latest DRG patch has now heavily reworked the perk system, and so far the new one seems to be a lot better.
[Update]: Just like clockwork, Update 27 has now arrived with a whole bunch of quality-of-life changes, two new enemies, and the ability to let your beard flow freely!
In my eyes, Deep Rock Galactic is the perfect example of how to handle an Early Access game. When it first launched it brought with it a decent amount of content and was mostly free of annoying bugs (the non-hostile kind anyway), after which the developers started releasing a steady stream of major updates, all the while fixing problems and adding features requested by the community.
This trend has continued to this very day as Ghost Ship Games have just recently announced all of the important additions coming with Update 27 at some point this month. More interestingly, however, the developers have also revealed that Deep Rock Galactic is quickly approaching its 1.0 version and that it will most likely be launching in the second quarter of 2020!
As you might expect, Update 1.0 will mostly focus around improving the new player experience, as well as polishing up the UI and adding a variety of quality-of-life features. When it comes to veteran players, the most interesting part of this update will be the long-requested rework of the perk system. The details are still few and far between, but what I can tell you right now is that there will be a lot more active perks to mess around with, to the point that even some of the passive perks will be getting transformed into active ones - Iron Will being the prime example.
Once the release date has come and gone, Ghost Ship Games will then focus on improving mission variety and adding more long-term content. By the looks of things all of this will be done through free updates, though to be perfectly honest, I certainly wouldn't mind a beefy expansion at some point in the future as well.
Once a rock-solid release date gets announced I'll make sure to let you know, but until then you can learn a bit more about what Ghost Ship Games has planned for Deep Rock Galactic over at Steam.