Risk of Rain 2 is as good as gaming gets it is mindless fun and adds in a complex loot system making it one of the ultimate loot shooters, and yes I have played Destiny and Borderlands so don't at me. Unlocking items, discovering new synergies, planning out builds — it’s all immensely satisfying. Make no mistake, this is a hard game, and the randomized nature inherent to roguelikes just won’t click with some people. But, for players like myself and my co-op partner who have a taste for escalating action and challenge, this game stands as one of the very best in the genre to date.
What is Risk of Rain 2?
Risk of Rain 2’s story is not terribly expansive, though it does serve to bring to light the themes and characters that make the original such an enjoyable experience. It’s really just a simple quest to rescue some love interest, though a large portion of the game’s final acts are puzzle-heavy as the hero goes after his father, who is a mean-spirited evil mastermind. The ability to freely customize your character with a wide variety of weapons and enhancements, which are acquired by tearing down orbs (I mean absorbing them and transferring them to your inventory) is incredibly fun. You can upgrade your character's physical abilities, or perhaps his shield, or anything else that will make you more resilient against enemy attacks, or more lethal in a single round of combat.
The Loot
Think Destiny but with destructible environments, respawns, huge levels, and other unique mechanics. The Loot (randomly generated) is the primary reason why Risk of Rain 2 is so great, it is the perfect medium to drop stuff from and customize your characters. In a more traditional game, you find these things randomly. But Risk of Rain 2 also features a “Deathmatch” mode, where you battle other players in a very similar manner to Destiny or Dishonored 2. This game has no classes, so this is your game style: load up the game with a ton of ammo, traps, bombs, and health items and put together a killer team. It's loads of fun and addictive.
The Challenge
As anyone who has played the original Risk of Rain will understand, it’s all about getting it wrong and succeeding. With every resource that you harvest, you are granted a point that increases the chance to find a duplicate resource on the next play. So by placing the wrong items in the right places, you can really rack up the reward. It’s chaotic and merciless. But, thanks to the deceptively high level of challenge, and the fact that it can be solved relatively quickly (in the shortest amount of time) there is not a huge amount of frustration. A scenario where you would find yourself becoming frustrated quickly is at the hands of your co-op partner, as it’s often very easy to move from one area to another when they fail to perform one of their tasks.
The Gameplay
Risk of Rain 2 sports over 100 items to unlock, as well as more than 300 paths to travel down. That sounds like a lot but everything in the game is still explorable. It would take some serious hours to finish the game, but for players who aren’t the sort to play games for hundreds of hours, this should be a cakewalk. If Risk of Rain 2 is on the Xbox One, players can spend hours upon hours fighting enemies and unlocking loot. All of the monsters in the game can be killed with just a bow. Combine that with the fact that just about any weapon can kill or stun every enemy type and what have you got? A hardcore-thriller game for the casual player. The Graphics These things are a lot like Lego blocks and I love Lego blocks. I’ve built entire, functional gaming rigs from these blocks.
The Difficulty
Graphically and Storywise, this game is exactly what it promises: Risk of Rain 2 takes cues from (and builds upon) the first game in the series. For those who never played it, you play as two characters on a distant planet that’s under attack. You must use a wide variety of weapons and abilities to engage and survive on your own, or with your friends. Sometimes, you will face fierce and varied enemies, other times, you may just get lucky with explosive barrels and rigged joints that you come across. The difficulty is much like the first game in the series. We’ve certainly played games that scale down after a few hours but, that being said, I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a game in this genre that runs this hard.
Conclusion
I’ve always looked at the PC as the land of great opportunity, and while I’ve never really owned anything but a Windows machine, I was treated to some very high-quality releases on Steam. In this review, I attempted to give the game a fair shake — I’ve already purchased Risk of Rain 1, so the gameplay was familiar. Ultimately, Risk of Rain 2 is a love letter to old-school gaming. Despite being in development for two years, the dev team chose to release on Steam early, giving as many people as possible a chance to get their hands on the latest and greatest.
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