[Introduction]
Risk of Rain 2 initially sounds like a far cry from its predecessor, at least on paper. "Third-person shooter roguelike" seems to be an unusual direction for a sequel to an "action platformer with roguelike elements."
That said, the paper lies, because this sequel adds more than just another dimension!
[First Impressions]
It actually works.
Some of us were concerned when we discovered that there would be a transition from 2D to 3D. The first game's characters had been built entirely around a two-dimensional plane. There was a great deal of uncertainty regarding how the second game would play, whether it would still give us the same feel as the first, and whether Hopoo even knew what they were doing.
We'll get into that, particularly the last part, but just in case you don't read any further than this, rest assured: it actually works.
[Development]
Right off the bat, let's get to the elephant in the room:
How the hell did two guys manage to create a 3D third person shooter in almost every conceivable way?
To put it plainly, they did not. In fact, the initial project didn't involve a transition to 3D at all; it was intended to be a 2D game, quite similar to the first in terms of gameplay and style, but with the player taking control of the creatures inhabiting the planet. However, this never went past a prototype stage, and unfortunately nothing playable is accessible to us. A shame, really, because the concept alone presents both promising potential for gameplay and a new perspective from which to tell the story.
Regardless of how promising this might have been (and could still be!), development on this prototype was halted. As it would happen, it's actually our own fault. Yes, that's right - we, the fans, are responsible. Some of us were just too damn loyal to the franchise, and largely owing to the plethora of fan art displaying Risk of Rain characters covered in items to varying degrees, Hopoo decided to essentially recreate the first game, but with the added visual details of actually showing us all the stuff we've picked up during our playthroughs. 2D quickly proved less-than-desirable for this purpose, due to limitations on perspectives. There simply wasn't enough room on 2D models to adequately show the vast array of different items that could be picked up and displayed.
2.5D was attempted. It was thought that a middle ground between 2D and 3D could be reached by rendering a fully 3D model in a 2D plane, but this was still insufficient. At this stage, they simply ditched the second dimension altogether and moved straight to the third, and although the transition in and of itself was largely problem-free, they did have two big ones:
In part that they had precisely zero experience with Unity, the engine chosen for the game.
And in part that they had precisely zero experience with 3D animation.
But, with an expansion of the team and some no doubt very intense training, Hopoo Games eventually managed to acquire the talent and the confidence to announce the sequel in May 2017. Fast forward a couple years of development and hype, and Risk of Rain 2 was released into early access on PC in March 2019. Early access was swiftly followed by Hopoo signing with Gearbox to publish the game on Switch, PS4 and Xbox One, and just over a year later, in August 2019, the full game was released.
Naturally, work didn't stop there, and the game is still receiving updates and patches as of this review, in addition to being released for Stadia in September 2020, making it available on 5 platforms. Not bad for an indie company with all of 3 employees! Granted, additional development was a collaborative effort between Hopoo and a number of other studios, but we certainly wouldn't have gotten Risk of Rain 2 without Duncan Drummond, Paul Morse and Jeffrey Hunt.
Elements of the player base were disappointed that certain characters from the first game were left out of the sequel, most notably the Bandit. Not so much notable for his popularity, but rather for the fact that the Bandit actually exists in the game's files as an incomplete but technically playable character, including a model, animations and skills. He's just inaccessible to players without the use of mods.
[Game Mechanics]
Risk of Rain 2 plays surprisingly similarly to Risk of Rain 1: kill enemies to get money. Use money to open chests and get items. Use items to kill more enemies. Rinse and repeat until you feel ready to activate the level's teleporter, which will spawn a boss. Defeat the boss, teleport to the next level, repeat. Keep doing this until you reach the primordial teleporter, which will take you to the moon, where you will face the game's final boss. Alternatively, hop on through the celestial portal and approach THE OBELISK and obliterate yourself from existence.
The character selection, the level exploration, the teleporter boss(es), the final showdown before escaping the planet; it's all there. Aside from a few changes to the character and enemy rosters, you wouldn't be off the mark if you said the only real difference is 3D. A remarkable achievement, really.
Although it probably goes without saying, this does present some challenges, not least of which is the Commando. In RoR1, the Commando was a perfectly adequate introduction character with a useful loadout offering both decent firepower and mobility. He effectively embodied the old figure of speech, "jack of all trades, master of none" by providing a well-rounded base from which to unlock other characters.
Not so in RoR2. Here, the Commando may very well be the worst possible introduction to the game. Double Tap now has damage fall-off after a distance of 25m, culminating in a 50% damage decrease at 60m. Phase Round works the same, but enemies lining up doesn't happen as often as you might want. Tactical Dive no longer negates damage. Suppressive Fire no longer fires in multiple directions.
This is not to say that the Commando is no longer viable, but he did not make the transition to 3D unscathed. What was once a character suited for pretty much any engagement has been reduced to something far more situational in nature and reliant on good item drops than before, to the point that the Huntress or MUL-T might be better suited for new players.
I would also repeat my word of caution from the Risk of Rain 1 review:
The damage system is very strange, especially at first glance. Everything displayed works off a percentage system. Using the same example as before, "shoot twice for 2x60% damage" means that you attack twice for 2x60% of your character's base damage. This base damage increases with your level. As previously stated, I suspect the reasoning is so they can keep skill descriptions simple, but it still strikes me as an odd choice.
However, it is much less nebulous now than it was in the first game, because the base damage is now immediately accessible to the player, making the system far easier to understand.
Beyond this, the remaining changes and additions are welcome, or at the very least more interesting than before. Some of these might be overlooked entirely, such as destructible elements in a level's environment that either damage enemies (and players!) or provide some kind of debuff. Nice to have, but really not a game changer. Others are far more substantial, such as hidden levels, secret areas and, perhaps most notably, a total revamp of how the player acquires artifacts. Where once artifact acquisition was largely a matter of locating a hidden path or completing a fairly simple puzzle, Risk of Rain 2 requires you to reach the Sky Meadow, locate the artifact gate, punch in a code associated with a certain artifact (which can be found in hidden areas in other levels), enter the portal and beat the artifact challenge. It should probably be said that it's entirely possible to just look up the various codes, but an attempt has undeniably been made to make artifact acquisition more challenging!
There are other secrets, of course, as well as hidden knowledge to be found that explains more about both your own circumstances and the nature of the planet. More on that latter.
It must also be said that multiplayer is a much larger part of RoR2 than it was in RoR1. Setting up a multiplayer lobby or joining an ongoing one is much easier and requires no third party tools. It's highly customisable (although 16 player lobbies tend to be... wonky) and a lot of fun. There really isn't much else to say. It just works.
As a final note, I will say that there are elements that bother me. Opened chests are harder to distinguish from unopened chests than in the first game, the Bazaar isn't as significant to my runs as I might like, the Huntress' lock-on range is a bit too short and it would be nice if bosses spawned in a little faster when you activate the teleporter.
But honestly? None of this even actually matters, because guess what:
RISK OF RAIN 2 SUPPORTS MODS!
That's right, as I briefly alluded to early in the review, the game supports mods, and boy does the community support the game supporting mods. There's an active modding scene replete with creators adding everything from quality of life features to unofficial bugfixes to straight up adding new characters. Pretty much every issue I have with the game can be made up for with mods.
Want the old characters from RoR1? You got it!
Want to save your progress with every new level you teleport to? You got it!
Want a cheat menu? You got it!
Want all the text in the game to be turned into "random rambling and shitty unfunny memes"? YOU GOT IT!
The sky's the limit. Maybe. Lord knows the modders have no restraint. There's a mod for everything.
And I do mean everything.
[Graphics]
Very nice, but hardly impressive when compared to many other games with higher budgets and fancier engines.
While it really is rather apparent that Hopoo Games have not made any previous 3D titles and sorta just jumped into this, there's no denying they jumped in with both feet. They may not have had prior experience, but I'll be damned if they didn't make it work in the end.
Like its predecessor, Risk of Rain 2 isn't a game that's going to wow you with its graphics. For anything other than an indie company with a staff list you can count on one hand, it might even cross over to being underwhelming.
However, I do think that the Risk of Rain style has been maintained, even cemented, and their original goal of depicting the plethora of items available to players directly on in-game character models was a success.
Bearing in mind that this was the entire purpose of transitioning to 3D, I think it's safe to say that they not only made do, but actually went well above expectations.
[Story]
Once again, it's entirely possible to play through Risk of Rain 500 times and never so much as consider there might be a story. Nothing gets in your way if you wanna just ignore anything not immediately related to gameplay, because, just like the first game, the story is told almost entirely through environment, context and logs.
This time around, you are CREWMEMBER. Your ship, the UES Safe Travels, has arrived at the last known coordinates of the ship from the first game, the UES Contact Light. No one knows what happened, which is where you come in: this is a rescue mission.
Naturally, you end up rescuing precisely nobody, because there's nobody left alive. This is readily apparent almost from the get go due to the total absence of anything resembling friendly NPCs, but is really emphasized when you get to Rallypoint Delta, the UES Contact Light survivor camp. Everything is frozen and, as with every other place you visit, the locals are not particularly pleased with your presence.
So, much like in RoR1, you trek through a variety of odd biomes, pick up the cargo from the Contact Light and decide to put it to good use. Sometimes this means replacing your leg with a goat hoof, sometimes it means drinking an ungodly amount of energy drinks, sometimes it means wrapping razor wire around your limbs, and sometimes it means attaching a sentient meat hook to yourself. What could go wrong? And what choice do you have? You're only doing what's necessary to find out what the hell happened here. You just want to save these people. You just want to make it out alive.
[Spoilers]
The very advertent calamity is you, the player.
Continuing the cycle established in the first game, we blindly barge into the home of the planet's inhabitants, going in guns blazing and wondering why we're not welcome. This is made even worse by the revelation that Providence had apparently gathered them here to provide them with a sort of safe haven from whatever other threats they were facing. Perhaps worst of all is that we don't even have the veil of ignorance this time around. We didn't happen to be on a ship carrying stolen goods. We weren't forced by circumstance to defend ourselves from hostile aliens. Nope, we dropped to the planet armed to the teeth, intent on bringing back the folks from the UES Contact Light.
So not only have we been stealing things from the planet. We've also killed their savior, Providence, and riled up Mithrix, as well as whatever is lurking in the Void.
And we do it all in a blissful state of ignorance, until we start reading the logs.
That's when we realise: We're the bad guys, even if we never meant to be.
[Pros]
- It's a roguelike, with all the ups and downs this entails
- Controls are easy to learn
- Solid single player experience
- Multiplayer supporting up to 4 players by default (but seeing lobbies of up to 16 players is not unusual)
- Unexpectedly interesting story element
- Fantastic soundtrack
- Mostly bug-free!
- Very, very active modding scene; I cannot stress enough how fantastic the mod creators are
[Cons]
- It's a roguelike, with all the ups and downs this entails
- Controls may be difficult to master
- Damage system is confusing (albeit less so than RoR1)
- Commando is not as good an introductory character as he was in RoR1
- Some players may find some characters uninteresting or downright unenjoyable
- If you have no interest in unlock completion, replay value may diminish
- Not completely bug free
[Conclusion]
If you're into roguelikes, unlock completion, and... well, I suppose it's intentional genocide this time around, then check out Risk of Rain. Moral compass optional.
[Score]
9/10
/DUX
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