seemingly simple on the surface, Risk of Rain Returns presents a philosophical proposal—should one continue to reject modern times and live out their nostalgia for the past, or leave that behind and accept the ever-changing future?
Risk of Rain Returns is a renaissance of the game that got Hopoo Games started in 2013. for context I didn't get into the original Risk of Rain (RoR1) until the holiday season of 2015. a good friend told me about it back when I was a NEET and it was my first roguelike whatsoever. I loved it! once it had ran its course over a good 100+ hours and I realized that it was abandoned by the devs I moved on from it. then I found out a 3D sequel was in the works and my hype was off the charts. Risk of Rain 2 released in early access right when I got my first job, funny enough. I was there for the whole development cycle—from the days of pre-release Tumblr dev blogs, all the way to its first expansion—and here I am now with ~1450 hours in it. that's my background with this series.
after RoR2's tumultuous development cycle, time constraints and all, it seems like Hopoo kinda just.. gave up on it and handed the rights over to Gearbox. that's completely understandable given the fact that their core dev team used to be just three people getting help from Gearbox. the co-founders themselves had no experience with 3D game development nor the Unity engine. rather than pushing themselves through something they didn't enjoy anymore they decided to move on to other projects, with the first being a return to what got us all here in the first place.
I'm not here to dissect every little gameplay change/addition or whether or not it has """held up well""" a decade later or anything of the sort. the bottom line is that it's a classic that holds personal weight and sees nothing but improvements. what's important to me is the fact that it convinced me to critically reassess my thoughts on Risk of Rain 2, particularly its status as a favorite of mine that I put a ton of time into as my "time sink" game, and the series as a whole. RoR2 used to be one of my favorite games and one that I considered to be a direct upgrade over RoR1. why play 1 when 2 exists? while Returns might seem like more of a remaster of a game from 2013, in my eyes it is the best that the series has to offer. it's a culmination of Hopoo's best efforts after their dabble into 3D development and the expansion of their development team which has more than doubled in size, as well as additional help from some of the most prominent RoR1 modders.
the two new features that I find worth mentioning are the catch-up mechanic and the alternate game mode, Providence Trials. firstly, when you die in co-op you live out a second life as a measly gunner drone for the remainder of the stage. you can't interact with anything, but you can pick up items and fly wherever you like while drawing aggro off your friends. it's funny, it's fair and a very welcomed inclusion. as for Providence Trials I find them to be entertaining minigames that are a breath of fresh air as the main gameplay loop of runs can get rather stale after all these years. I don't see them as gimmicky, frustrating events that you have to force yourself through to unlock alternate skills. in fact I spent some number of hours getting gold ranks in every trial and never grew tired of it, not even the hardest wildly imbalanced ones. I'd argue that although many aren't applicable to regular gameplay, some do teach you lessons and build up habits or provide knowledge that can be utilized in your runs.
my only real complaints which are still pretty negligible would be balance concerns that'll probably be addressed in future patches, and the fact that so many item unlocks are gated behind hyper-specific challenges. the issue is that a handful of them are much more difficult and/or conditional than the rest. reach the third teleporter as Commando without getting hit, reach level 10 as Miner without getting hit more than once, kill x enemies simultaneously with a certain skill/equipment... these are all very tedious to unlock without using artifacts or the intensity sliders. yeah it's good that there's a variety of challenges here but they most likely won't happen naturally, so they felt like things I had to go out of my way to complete rather than just enjoying playing the game normally. that's on me for being so insistent on doing them the hard way, but it's annoying that I have to unlock more items to diversify the item pools.
aside from those minor concerns I'm enamored by this release.... or at least I would be if I wasn't so burnt out on Action Roguelites. it's a bittersweet feeling, but at least I'm not tempted to dump hundreds of hours into it until it overstays its welcome. every single change—from improving the flow of combat by allowing each survivor to attack and move at the same time, to the remastered tracks giving more detail and texture to an already incredible OST—seems well thought out and done for the better. I can't say the same for its sequel. simply put, it's basically the Remaster vs. Remake argument all over again. the original has its own charm that its sequel is sorely lacking, whereas this "remaster" keeps it intact and even amplifies it. I'm sure you know where I'm going with this so it doesn't need further explanation, Soul vs. Soulless and all that, but I have been steadily creating a list of all of my gripes with RoR2. you can find them in my other review for it if you'd like to divulge in its handful of flaws for more context.
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and so I loop back to that initial question: will you continue to reject the present and live out your nostalgia for the past... or will you leave that behind, escape this planet, and accept the ever-changing future?
there is no answer to that. neither, a mixture of both, it's all open to interpretation. in my case I found RoR1 during my not-so-fond NEET years and RoR2 dropped right as I got my first job. I put many, many hours into RoR2 and enjoyed it in the moment, but the more time that passes after breaking my obsession with it, the more its appeal wears off and the harder it gets to be willfully ignorant towards its flaws. I've finally realized that getting tons of playtime out of something doesn't automatically make it better or more valuable. RoR2 generally feels like a product of its time for me as I've lost that passion for roguelikes, which is rather ironic considering that one of the other games in this discussion is from 2013. the problem is that RoR2 feels like an overload of sensory stimulation that I just don't even want to go back to. in my eyes it tried way too hard to lean into being Fun for the player that it lost its identity in the process, possibly as a result of its explosive popularity and the intent of responding to player feedback. I used to consider it one of my favorite games and gaming experiences overall, but that's changed. and that's a good thing, personal growth is necessary to be able to discover and articulate my preferences. I'm sure RoR2 will be fine in Gearbox's hands too, but who knows. I'm mainly looking forward to whatever Hopoo Games will create next now that they're done with this roguelike series. as its final sendoff, Returns has been a blast. play it by yourself, with your friends, with or without artifacts, whatever. it's a great game!
while Risk of Rain 2 may have missed its mark and became its own thing entirely, I'm just glad we got this.. remaster? re-release? something like that. Risk of Rain Returns is a slight re-imagining of an influential title, a game that's important to me, and it's one of the best of its kind. it may not be some masterfully crafted experience (besides the community memes) but I love it all the same. it's one of my favorite roguelites for good reason; one that lets me turn a blind eye to the typical shortcomings that plague this subgenre and the fatigue that comes with it. it's an exception to the rule. I'll take a compact, essential experience above an oversaturated time waster any day.
...and so she left, her soul still remaining on the planet.
Risk of Rain Returns is a renaissance of the game that got Hopoo Games started in 2013. for context I didn't get into the original Risk of Rain (RoR1) until the holiday season of 2015. a good friend told me about it back when I was a NEET and it was my first roguelike whatsoever. I loved it! once it had ran its course over a good 100+ hours and I realized that it was abandoned by the devs I moved on from it. then I found out a 3D sequel was in the works and my hype was off the charts. Risk of Rain 2 released in early access right when I got my first job, funny enough. I was there for the whole development cycle—from the days of pre-release Tumblr dev blogs, all the way to its first expansion—and here I am now with ~1450 hours in it. that's my background with this series.
after RoR2's tumultuous development cycle, time constraints and all, it seems like Hopoo kinda just.. gave up on it and handed the rights over to Gearbox. that's completely understandable given the fact that their core dev team used to be just three people getting help from Gearbox. the co-founders themselves had no experience with 3D game development nor the Unity engine. rather than pushing themselves through something they didn't enjoy anymore they decided to move on to other projects, with the first being a return to what got us all here in the first place.
I'm not here to dissect every little gameplay change/addition or whether or not it has """held up well""" a decade later or anything of the sort. the bottom line is that it's a classic that holds personal weight and sees nothing but improvements. what's important to me is the fact that it convinced me to critically reassess my thoughts on Risk of Rain 2, particularly its status as a favorite of mine that I put a ton of time into as my "time sink" game, and the series as a whole. RoR2 used to be one of my favorite games and one that I considered to be a direct upgrade over RoR1. why play 1 when 2 exists? while Returns might seem like more of a remaster of a game from 2013, in my eyes it is the best that the series has to offer. it's a culmination of Hopoo's best efforts after their dabble into 3D development and the expansion of their development team which has more than doubled in size, as well as additional help from some of the most prominent RoR1 modders.
the two new features that I find worth mentioning are the catch-up mechanic and the alternate game mode, Providence Trials. firstly, when you die in co-op you live out a second life as a measly gunner drone for the remainder of the stage. you can't interact with anything, but you can pick up items and fly wherever you like while drawing aggro off your friends. it's funny, it's fair and a very welcomed inclusion. as for Providence Trials I find them to be entertaining minigames that are a breath of fresh air as the main gameplay loop of runs can get rather stale after all these years. I don't see them as gimmicky, frustrating events that you have to force yourself through to unlock alternate skills. in fact I spent some number of hours getting gold ranks in every trial and never grew tired of it, not even the hardest wildly imbalanced ones. I'd argue that although many aren't applicable to regular gameplay, some do teach you lessons and build up habits or provide knowledge that can be utilized in your runs.
my only real complaints which are still pretty negligible would be balance concerns that'll probably be addressed in future patches, and the fact that so many item unlocks are gated behind hyper-specific challenges. the issue is that a handful of them are much more difficult and/or conditional than the rest. reach the third teleporter as Commando without getting hit, reach level 10 as Miner without getting hit more than once, kill x enemies simultaneously with a certain skill/equipment... these are all very tedious to unlock without using artifacts or the intensity sliders. yeah it's good that there's a variety of challenges here but they most likely won't happen naturally, so they felt like things I had to go out of my way to complete rather than just enjoying playing the game normally. that's on me for being so insistent on doing them the hard way, but it's annoying that I have to unlock more items to diversify the item pools.
aside from those minor concerns I'm enamored by this release.... or at least I would be if I wasn't so burnt out on Action Roguelites. it's a bittersweet feeling, but at least I'm not tempted to dump hundreds of hours into it until it overstays its welcome. every single change—from improving the flow of combat by allowing each survivor to attack and move at the same time, to the remastered tracks giving more detail and texture to an already incredible OST—seems well thought out and done for the better. I can't say the same for its sequel. simply put, it's basically the Remaster vs. Remake argument all over again. the original has its own charm that its sequel is sorely lacking, whereas this "remaster" keeps it intact and even amplifies it. I'm sure you know where I'm going with this so it doesn't need further explanation, Soul vs. Soulless and all that, but I have been steadily creating a list of all of my gripes with RoR2. you can find them in my other review for it if you'd like to divulge in its handful of flaws for more context.
---
and so I loop back to that initial question: will you continue to reject the present and live out your nostalgia for the past... or will you leave that behind, escape this planet, and accept the ever-changing future?
there is no answer to that. neither, a mixture of both, it's all open to interpretation. in my case I found RoR1 during my not-so-fond NEET years and RoR2 dropped right as I got my first job. I put many, many hours into RoR2 and enjoyed it in the moment, but the more time that passes after breaking my obsession with it, the more its appeal wears off and the harder it gets to be willfully ignorant towards its flaws. I've finally realized that getting tons of playtime out of something doesn't automatically make it better or more valuable. RoR2 generally feels like a product of its time for me as I've lost that passion for roguelikes, which is rather ironic considering that one of the other games in this discussion is from 2013. the problem is that RoR2 feels like an overload of sensory stimulation that I just don't even want to go back to. in my eyes it tried way too hard to lean into being Fun for the player that it lost its identity in the process, possibly as a result of its explosive popularity and the intent of responding to player feedback. I used to consider it one of my favorite games and gaming experiences overall, but that's changed. and that's a good thing, personal growth is necessary to be able to discover and articulate my preferences. I'm sure RoR2 will be fine in Gearbox's hands too, but who knows. I'm mainly looking forward to whatever Hopoo Games will create next now that they're done with this roguelike series. as its final sendoff, Returns has been a blast. play it by yourself, with your friends, with or without artifacts, whatever. it's a great game!
while Risk of Rain 2 may have missed its mark and became its own thing entirely, I'm just glad we got this.. remaster? re-release? something like that. Risk of Rain Returns is a slight re-imagining of an influential title, a game that's important to me, and it's one of the best of its kind. it may not be some masterfully crafted experience (besides the community memes) but I love it all the same. it's one of my favorite roguelites for good reason; one that lets me turn a blind eye to the typical shortcomings that plague this subgenre and the fatigue that comes with it. it's an exception to the rule. I'll take a compact, essential experience above an oversaturated time waster any day.
...and so she left, her soul still remaining on the planet.