Risk of Rain Returns

My first hour with Risk of Rain Returns felt like being handed a loaded weapon with no safety and a ticking clock. The core tension is brutal and simple: every second you spend on Petrichor V, the difficulty climbs. Sit still and loot too long, and the enemies that show up to ruin your run are several categories harder than anything you were ready for. Activate the teleporter, survive the boss gauntlet that follows, and sprint to the next stage. Repeat until dead. Then do it all again. What makes the loop stick is the survivor roster. You start with just the Commando (a dodge-rolling generalist who can line up a Full Metal Jacket piercing shot before closing in with a point-blank shotgun blast) and the Huntress (a fragile, lightning-fast character who can shoot at full speed while moving). The remaining survivors are locked behind in-game challenges that range from "just play a few runs" to genuinely arcane - unlocking the Mercenary requires beating the game five full times, and the Drifter demands recycling six drones in a single run, which is half luck-dependent. Characters like the Loader (a grappling brawler who punches enemies into each other), the Engineer (whose turrets inherit your full item stack), and the Sniper (devastating at range, brutal to play up close) each demand a completely different strategy. Alternate skills add another layer on top, letting you reshape a survivor's kit once you've put in the time. The item pool is where things get chaotic in the best way. A Ukulele that chains lightning between enemies, boxing gloves that shove crowds off ledges, a teddy bear that resurrects you outright - there's no tonal consistency to any of it, and that wild mishmash is completely intentional. When RNG lines up in your favor early, you can spiral into an absurd power fantasy where you're melting bosses before the difficulty curve catches back up. When it doesn't, you're scrabbling for scraps and improvising with whatever the Multishop Terminal happened to stock. Artifacts add a third dial to twist: Command lets you choose every item you collect instead of leaving it random, Sacrifice rips chests out entirely and makes enemies drop loot, Glass doubles your damage while gutting your health. Stack multiple artifacts and runs turn into something almost unrecognizable. The Providence Trials mode is worth calling out separately. These are structured single-character challenges with specific conditions and timers, and they function as the primary way to unlock alternate skills and cosmetics. Some trials feel like sharp skill tests; others drag on or lean too hard into RNG. The aiming system is the most persistently annoying limitation - most survivors can only fire left or right, meaning aerial enemies require jumping to match their height or waiting them out, and you cannot shoot while climbing ropes or ladders. Coming from Risk of Rain 2, this constraint takes real adjustment. The online multiplayer is a genuine upgrade over the original game's port-forwarding era, with proper lobbies and server browser options now in place. For players new to the series, this is a steep but fair entry point. For Risk of Rain 2 veterans expecting the same three-dimensional freedom, the 2D restrictions will chafe initially - but the underlying loop is strong enough to pull you back. The pixel art is sharper than it has any right to be, and the soundtrack still hits hard. It doesn't break new ground for the genre, but it doesn't need to. What it does well, it does with genuine conviction.

Alex · Scout Team

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