Risk Of Rain 2 Exits Steam Early Access, Gigantic Patch Notes Released

Developer Hopoo Games has officially released Risk of Rain 2 out of Steam Early Access, and has also added a new playable character as voted for by over 60,000 community members, a new boss to challenge, and much more.

"Since March of 2019, the game doubled in size with new survivors, levels, and items; but more importantly, the passionate community guided us in implementing and finessing gameplay elements and systems that leave this final product feeling holistically improved upon, said Paul Morse and Duncan Drummond, co-founders of Hopoo Games, in a press statement."

Risk of Rain 2 sold over a million copies within its first month in Steam Early Access, and can be purchased for the discounted price of $15.99 until August 18 or $12.94 on Gamebillet. From August 19, Risk of Rain 2 will revert to its $24.99 price.

The game is also available on Xbox One, PS4, and Nintendo Switch, but only up to its Artifacts 2.0 update. On PC, the fifth major content update will be focusing on the "ending sequence of the game and promoting player agency build diversity" according to the released patch notes.

Major Content

Added System: Game Ending

• The game now includes a proper ending, with credits and cutscene.

Added System: Server Browser

Quickplay served an important function at launch - but the QP feature-set is barebones. Not only that, but the game has evolved past needing to just find a match - you need to find the right match. We think a built-in Server Browser (and hosting) will still allow you to connect and find other players easily while also providing a lot of the features and choices you want to make before connecting to a game.

Added System: Intro Cutscene

• The game now includes an intro cutscene!

Added New Survivor

• New Survivor: Captain

Added New Stage

• New Final Stage

Added 4 New Music Tracks

• New Track: Through a Cloud, Darkly
• New Track: ...con lentitud poderosa
• New Track: You're Gonna Need a Bigger Ukulele
• New Track: Lacrimosum

Added New Survivor Skin

• New Survivor Skin: Captain Skin

Added 2 New Monsters

• New Monster
• New Monster

Added New Boss

• New Final Boss

Added New Interactable

• New Interactable: Scrapper

Added 7 Items and 3 Equipment to the game

• New Item: Item Scrap (White, Green, Red, Yellow)
• New Boss Item: Molten Perforator
• New Boss Item: Shatterspleen
• New Boss Item: Mired Urn
• New Lunar Item: Defiant Gouge
• New Lunar Item: Mercurial Rachis
• New Lunar Item: Purity
• New Equipment: Super Massive Leech
• New Equipment: Gorag's Opus
• New Equipment: Forgive Me Please

Added 3 Character Challenges to the game

• New Captain Challenge: Captain Mastery
• New Captain Challenge: Wanderlust
• New Captain Challenge: Worth Every Penny

Added 3 Challenges to the game

• New Challenge: I Love Dying!
• New Challenge: Washed Away
• New Challenge: The Calm

Added 36 Lore Entries to the game

• New Item Lore Entry: Molten Perforator
• New Item Lore Entry: Shatterspleen
• New Item Lore Entry: Mired Urn
• New Item Lore Entry: Super Massive Leech
• New Item Lore Entry: Gorag's Opus
• New Item Lore Entry: Forgive Me Please
• New Item Lore Entry: Soulbound Catalyst
• New Item Lore Entry: Bandolier
• New Item Lore Entry: The Crowdfunder
• New Item Lore Entry: Old Guillotine
• New Item Lore Entry: Jade Elephant
• New Item Lore Entry: Blast Shower
• New Item Lore Entry: Lepton Daisy
• New Item Lore Entry: Shattering Justice
• New Item Lore Entry: Topaz Brooch
• New Item Lore Entry: Ocular HUD
• New Item Lore Entry: Unstable Tesla Coil
• New Item Lore Entry: Milky Chrysalis
• New Item Lore Entry: Will-o'-the-wisp
• New Item Lore Entry: Gnarled Woodsprite
• New Item Lore Entry: Halcyon Seed
• New Item Lore Entry: Purity
• New Item Lore Entry: Glowing Meteorite
• New Item Lore Entry: Preon Accumulator
• New Item Lore Entry: Aegis
• New Monster Lore Entry: Clay Dunestrider
• New Monster Lore Entry: Alloy Vulture
• New Monster Lore Entry: Imp
• New Monster Lore Entry: Void Reaver
• New Monster Lore Entry: ???
• New Monster Lore Entry: ???
• New Monster Lore Entry: ???
• New Stage Lore Entry: ???
• New Character Lore Entry: Huntress
• New Character Lore Entry: Captain
• New Character Lore Entry: MUL-T

Gameplay changes

General

• Bleeds now refresh all existing bleed durations on that target. This affects both enemies and players, and is a huge change for how bleeds will work.
• Increase difficulty rate over time for all difficulties by +10%.

Developer Notes: In this update, we've buffed a ton of items - and also given players way more agency over the way a run progresses. Our goal is for players to be more engaged with the game - what we don't want is for the game to be suddenly much easier. This is a bit of a sanity check, and shouldn't dramatically change the difficulty.

Slightly reworked OSP

The goal is to fix inconsistencies and make it actually protect you from one-shots - while also fixing some abuse cases with curse.

• The threshold for OSP is now displayed on the healthbar with a faint graphic.
• Now has a lingering 0.1s duration when activated.
• Now is subtracted via Curse (Shaped Glass, Artifact of Glass, etc), i.e a curse of 10% will remove OSP entirely.
• Update OSP logic so it still triggers if you receive multiple sources of damage in the same frame that go past OSP values, i.e Malachite Lesser Wisps

Elites

Blazing, Overloading, Glacial

• Health Bonus: 400%

Malachite, Celestine

• Health Bonus: 1800%

Developer Notes: We've had a lot of feedback that elite health has always felt a bit bloated - and that subsequently, it makes the Old Guillotine feel required. Our intent is to make characters less reliant on the Old Guillotine, and to make it feel more like an elite hate item - and less of an overall DPS item.

Survivors

• Mobility skills are now considered 'sprinting', scaling with sprint speed multipliers and also sprinting after use.

Melee Survivors

• Melee skills will now perform more consistently at high attack speeds.
• Melee skills will now scale hitpause duration with attack speed - since the pause when hitting enemies were static, melee characters actually scaled poorly with attack speed.
• Melee skills will now 'hold' you in the air better at high attack speeds.

Added a 'Keyword' system. Keywords are just words to describe common repeated behavior without explaining it every time. Added the following keywords:

• Freezing
• Stunning
• Shocking
• Poisonous
• Regenerative
• Agile
• Percent HP
• Sonic Boom
• Weaken
• Expose
• Heavy

MUL-T

Developer Notes: MUL-T has gotten some love from this patch to really push forward the idea that his weapons are strong in specific roles. Faster swap time and more responsive actions for the weapons will (hopefully) make weapon swapping feel better. We've also admittedly creeped cooldowns down over time, and MUL-T felt a bit left behind.

• Base Acceleration: 30
• Rebar Puncher
• Now charges after firing, rather than before.

Scrap Launcher

• Now behaves like a rocket instead of a grenade.
• Lifetime: 4s
• Explosion Radius: 7m
• Velocity: 100 m/s

Nail Gun

• No longer has an initial shotgun of 6 nails.
• Now has a final shotgun of 12 nails.
• Now fires in a consistent corkscrew pattern
• Proc Coefficient: 0.6
• Damage: 70%
• Wind-down duration: 1.152s

Retool

• Swap duration: 0.4s

Transport Mode

• Cooldown: 6s

Mercenary

Developer Notes: The Mercenary was always supposed to be the highest skill-cap survivor. However, in actual gameplay he became very flow-charty, using abilities directly off cooldown while holding down M1. The intent for all these changes is to allow skill expression, dynamic cooldowns, and higher risk vs reward in fight with the new 'Exposed' debuff. The hope is that the character will be stronger for advanced players, but weaker for new players.

• Base Health: 110 (+33 per level)
• Base Regeneration: 1 health / second

NEW Debuff: Exposed

• Striking an Exposed target reduces all cooldowns by 1 second and deals an additional +350% base damage.

Laser Sword

• Third Strike Damage: 130%
• Third hit now applies 'Exposed' debuff.
• The second and third hit of the combo can no longer be started in the middle of other attacks.

Whirlwind

• Ground Speed Multiplier: 8

Blinding Assault

• Cooldown: 8s
• Can now be canceled mid-attack by both Whirlwind and Rising Thunder.

Slicing Winds

• Last hit now applies 'Exposed' debuff

Acrid

Developer Notes: Acrid has always been a melee-ranged hybrid. We want greater rewards for engaging in melee and completing your M1 combo for players who enjoy a more aggressive playstyle.

NEW Buff: Regenerate

• Regenerate for 10% health over 0.5 seconds.

Vicious Wounds

• Third hit of the combo now grants 'Regenerate' buff

Ravenous Bite

• Now grants 'Regenerate' buff

Frenzied Leap

• Now (properly) stuns

Artificer

Developer Notes: We want to enforce the Artificer's role as a high-damage, high AoE character. Nano-Bomb in general was core to the fantasy, but was pretty much inferior to Nano-Spear in every way.

Plasma Bolt

• Blast Radius: 6m

Charged Nano-Bomb

• Now has slight gravity
• Blast Radius: 14m
• Blast Damage, Max Charge: 2000%
• Blast Force: 3000
• Lifetime: 10s
• Improved FX for clarity

Ion Surge

• No longer has -75% damage falloff at the edge of the blast.

Items

Monster Tooth

• Healing: 8 per stack
• Now also heals for 2% (+2% per stack) of maximum health.

Medkit

• Healing: 20 per stack
• Now also heals for 5% (+5% per stack) of maximum health.

Repulsion Armor Plate

• Now properly reduces damage from environmental effects.

Warbanner

• Now also places a Warbanner when activating the Teleporter.
• Improve VFX to be less opaque, since it will always be near the Teleporter.

Death Mark

• Debuff Duration: +7s per stack
• Remove text stating that the damage bonus scaled with stacks.

Old Guillotine

• Execute Threshold: 13% (+13% per stack)

Developer Notes: Since we've re-tuned the health of elites across the board, the Guillotine should be appropriately re-tuned as well.

Runald's/Kjaro's Band

Developer Notes: The two rings have undergone a bit of a rework, working off of an internal cooldown rather than a chance on-hit. We're hoping that this can help diversify one of our "on-hit" items to be more than just attacking enemies and hoping things activate. We've also changed the behavior of Kjaro's to be more of the AoE option, while Runald's is the single target option.

• Proc Chance: 100%
• Now has an internal cooldown of 10 seconds
• Now has a minimum threshold of only triggering on attacks that deal 400% or greater damage

Runald's Band

• Ice Blast Damage: 250% (+250% per stack)
• Ice Debuff Duration: 3s (+3s per stack)

Kjaro's Band

• Fire Tornado Damage: 300% (+300% per stack)
• Fire Tornado Hitbox Width: 13m
• No longer moves.

H3AD-5T v2

Reworked logic for calculating fall speed so it scales better while falling farther. Now has the following behavior:

• Damage Coefficient: 1000% - 10,000% at maximum speed
• Explosion Radius: 5m - 100m at maximum speed
• Improved FX.

Interstellar Desk Plant

• Healing Radius: 5m (+5m per stack)
• Healing: 5% max health every 0.5 second

Milky Chrysalis

• Now grants true flight and antigravity instead of jump-to-hover.
• Pressing jump now performs a short dash in the direction of movement with a 0.5s cooldown.

Strides of Heresy

• No longer puts you in combat

Helfire Tincture

• Helfire Radius: 15m
• Helfire Duration: 12s
• Improve VFX and SFX

Effigy of Grief

• Now placed at where you're aiming, rather than at your feet
• No longer is consumed on use.
• Now limited to 5 per map per character.

Little Disciple

• Fire Rate: 1.6s
• Damage Coefficient: 300% (+300% per stack)
• Fire Rate now scales with movement speed

Stages

• 3D Printers will appear more often on all stages,~50% more.
• 3D Printers will cost less to spawn on all stages, 50% less.
• The new interactable, the Scrapper, can now appear on all stages.

Titanic Plains

• Update with new visuals to make it depressing.

Sky Meadow

• Update with new visuals and functionality that leads to the final stage.

Bazaar Between Time

• Base Portal Chance: 37.5% for the first portal
• Lunar Buds: 5

Monsters & Bosses

Mini Mushrum

• Base Health: 290 (+87 per level)

Parent

• Base Health: 900 (+270 per level)

Lesser Wisp

• Now properly stops charging attack sound when interrupted.

Imp Overlord

• Maximum Blink Distance: 300m
• Now throws Void Spikes in a staggered fashion, rather than all at once.

Magma Worm

• Maximum "Blink" Distance: 300m
• Now considerably more aggressive and better able to hit targets.

Developer Notes: The blink behavior of both the Imp Overlord and the Magma Worm allows it to follow players between platforms, but it leads a lot of the times to the bosses blinking across the map to attack drones and turrets. While they may still do that, it’ll be a bit less pronounced.

Void Reaver

• Now attempts to lead its Void Bombs in a straight line against its target.
• Updated AI to fire more aggressively and backpedal when its target is too close.
• AI now has 360° vision.

Bison

• Add spawn effect and animation (finally!).

Quality of Life

• Added a language dropdown menu to the Main Menu.
• Audio has received an overall mix pass.
• Reduced the audio levels of the Magma Worm, Imp Overlord, and Clay Dunestrider.
• Updated the Teleporter model.
• Updated the Ukulele model.
• Improved Infusion VFX to be more noticeable.
• Reduced brightness of some Mercenary effects to they are less white and have more color.
• Fixed dithering for several on-character item displays.
• Updated the kick system to be able to supply detailed messages and enforce version matching when connecting to a server.
• Added functionality for servers and lobbies to provide mod info and reject players for mismatches.
• Servers can now define behavior to run upon entering character select by supplying a "server_pregame.cfg" config file.
• Updated "MUL-T: Gotcha!" challenge to allow Preon tendrils to count toward completion.
• A bunch of other stuff we probably forgot!

Bug Fixes

• Fixed an issue with spread from bloom being applied to both minimum and maximum spread (ie you could never have a bullet travel dead-center when your spread bloom is at maximum) for Commando's Phase Blast, Huntress' Ballista, and MUL-T's Rebar Puncher.
• Fixed potential physics crash that could occur if a character attempts to use a melee attack after crossfading into a new animation from a paused animation.
• Fixed immobilization from Void Reavers and REX's Tangling Growth becoming permanent if using Wax Quail while affected, which would also sometimes lead to a crash upon getting killed.
• Fixed Repulsion Armor Plate not applying against posthumously dealt damage.
• Fixed Visions of Heresy allowing Huntress' Ballista to exceed three shots.
• All gameplay stats are now forced to update before generating the final run report to make sure all values are up-to-date at the end screen.
• Fixed MUL-T's Nailgun not properly animating over the network.
• Fixed some projectiles not playing their pre-expiration sounds over the network.
• Fixed several sounds not being played over the network.
• Fixed a timing issue in which lobby player count would not update immediately after a player leaves the lobby.
• Fixed a variety of other bugs we also probably forgot!

Known Issues

• There are none, this game is perfect.