Greetings Goobo Jr Fan Club!


You know the drill by now - Dev Thoughts also comes as a video!



You did smash it didn't you?

And before we crack on, don't forget to visit the Risk of Rain 2: Survivors of the Void Steam Page as it might have changed since your last visit…

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1607890/Survivors_of_the_Void




Since starting as Community Manager many of you within our console playing fanbase have asked me about the status of any updates in the future for Risk of Rain 2 - today I’m going to give you some fresh info.

Firstly, I’m happy to announce that it is our goal to release the upcoming RoR2 expansion Survivors of the Void on console in Q2 of 2022, quite soon after the release of the Steam version in Q1 (both dates subject to change, but currently both still on schedule!)

With the release of the expansion will also come an update where we have completely rebuilt the console version from the ground-up. The goal of this rebuild is to have much closer parity between the console and Steam versions of the game.

This update should resolve most existing console-only bugs and - In theory - any new bugs should no longer be platform specific which will make them easier to identify and fix.


In practice, there will definitely be new bugs.




Last month I asked you to come up with some renditions of one of the new Void monsters arriving in Survivors of the Void and the response was much bigger than I expected, and in some cases much weirder than I expected.

These ranged from the creative



To the funny



To the strangely accurate



Thank you to everyone who sent me your versions of this mystery Void Monster, let’s take a visit to Petrichor V to see just how close you were...




It’s time to go on a sightseeing tour of Survivors of the Void to discover the environments and monsters that await you in the expansion.

Let’s begin by visiting the Snowy Forest



The first monster we’ll find here today is not from these once-peaceful lands - but instead invading from the Void. The Void Jailer.

The Void Jailer is the master of putting you in your place. It’s main attack is a powerful void-blast that slows your speed and its secondary attack is a entangling snare that locks you in place, leaving you at the mercy of this abomination.





And if you manage to overcome this beast you had better get outta dodge REAL quick - those of you familiar with the Reavers know what happens when you manage to finally topple a Void enemy….





This was going to be a gif of the Void Jailer dying and doing that cool void-explosion but it kept killing me first so this is what you're getting instead.

Next up, one of the many enemies found high up in the Aphelian Sanctuary...



…is your new worst nightmare. The Blind Pest.




Who... this guy? Your worst nightmare? Surely not?

Aww look at his cute fuzzy face, flapping ear-wings and swinging tongue. What a cutie!





Don’t let it's looks fool you, I hate these things, and you will too. If Lesser Wisps are the flying shotguns of RoR2, these douchebags are the flying rifles. Dangerous in packs and deadly if ignored, get used to seeing this:



Not every new monster in Survivors of the Void will be completely unfamiliar. Our next monster is a returning enemy from a previous ill-fated visit to Petrichor V.

It’s big, it’s orange, and it’s here to ruin your Mercenary run...





It’s Gup.





And Geep and Gip, obviously.

Don't forget this is just a sample of the new stages and monsters you’ll find in Survivors of the Void - And that concludes the Petrichor Safari. As always thanks for being an amazing community and join me next year when we’ll have many more exciting reveals for you all.

Goodbye for now!



Jonathan @ Hopoo Games.

Hello fellow Survivors! Welcome back!


I wanted to start out by thanking everyone who reached out to me following last month’s video version of the Dev thoughts - as requested I got a huge amount of feedback - which was overwhelmingly positive so I went ahead and made another one for this month! Check it out and once again please let me know what you think!






The official artwork and the name of the upcoming Risk of Rain 2 Expansion is now ready to be unveiled:

Survivors of the Void.



We have also launched the Survivors of the Void store page on Steam:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1607890/Survivors_of_the_Void

I’d highly recommend both wishlisting the expansion and checking the store page regularly, there might just be some additions over the coming weeks. Also stick around for the rest of the Dev Thoughts - these are not the only Survivors of the Void reveals we have today...




Here’s a new section I'd like to include in each new Dev Thoughts where I highlight something cool created by our fans! This month i’d like to show off this amazing creation from @TheFiddleCat on Twitter:



Go and show them some love! If any of you have created or seen anything Hopoo Games related drop me an email at jonathan@hopoogames.com or ping me on Twitter or Discord and I might just include it in a future Dev Thoughts!




You’ll never guess what we installed in our new office this month: A genuine Item Printer from RoR2!

Someone let Ben near the bloody thing and he decided to make a load of copies of his raincoat...



Great job Ben you dingus, What are we supposed to do with all these coats??






Ok all is forgiven




Revealed in Dev Thoughts #21 and teased last month is the new game mode which will be available in Survivors of the Void.

How long will you last within the Simulacrum?



The Simulacrum is a wave-based arena mode set within a Void simulation. It can be played both single and multiplayer and contains any artifacts you’ve unlocked ready for use. It is an endless mode that can conclude only in your simulated demise.

My personal best attempt is wave 65 as Bandit, the office record is currently held by raincoat enthusiast Ben at an astounding wave 140 as Acrid. There is no shortage of testing (a.k.a. trying to beat each other’s record) going in behind the scenes with this new mode. We think you’ll have as much fun playing it as we have testing it!

The Void has recreated some of the iconic locations from Risk of Rain 2 to assess the threat of these dangerous places - the simulation is familiar yet somehow… different.


But definitely purple.

Within a confined safe-zone monsters spawn in waves of increasing difficulty and every 5th wave is a difficult Boss encounter. Some waves also have random mutators applied - maybe a random artifact is activated for one round...


...or maybe something that really sucks instead.

After each wave a Void Potential is created for every player, allowing you to select between 3 items giving you a great deal of control over your power within the Simulacrum.





Item Crates and other interactables spawn on the stage as normal - but venturing outside of the safe zone to reach these can be a great risk. Thankfully after every boss wave the safe zone moves to a new area, giving you a brief opportunity to open more crates and increase your power.




Get back here ya pesky varmint!

Getting those extra items will be a great help - when you experience a Void simulation of the most dangerous threats in the universe you never know who or what might show up to challenge you.






Please share your renditions of this mystery enemy in the #ror2-art-and-content channel on the Discord with a @SeventeenUncles ping plz. My personal favourite(s) will be included in next month’s Dev Thoughts.

Much Love

Jonathan @ Hopoo Games

Hey! I told you I'd be back this month!


A huge thank you to everyone who reached out and let me know what you thought of last month’s Dev Thoughts, we love how excited you are about the upcoming RoR2 expansion! Due to the positive response I decided to try out a video version of this month’s Dev Thoughts:



Please let me know what you think - especially if you would like to see this alternative format more in the future (I will continue with the written Dev Thoughts regardless.) Any ideas for future content/suggestions/critiques very welcome and greatly appreciated!

As always you can catch me on our Discord as @SeventeenUncles, or you can email me at jonathan@hopoogames.com. Or whack a comment on that Youtube video, also I’m pretty sure you’re supposed to smash that like button while you’re there. Smash it.




Before we get into the meat 'n' potatoes of the Dev Thoughts, one new thing for us at Hopoo games is that we moved offices!

Who is this welcoming us into the reception?



Why, its Ghor himself! Everyone say Hi to Ghor!



“Hi Gamers!” - Ghor

(someone call HR this guy isn’t wearing any damn pants)




Earlier this month I asked on Twitter what your #1 question about the expansion was and you didn't disappoint! Never fear - I am here to dish out the answers to the most popular ones...


The Steam release is currently on-schedule for a Q1 2022 release window. The console version will be released at a later date.

One of our more lofty goals when we first announced the expansion was our hope to do a simultaneous release on all platforms - this was something that we have not attempted before.

The deeper into development we go the more we realise that the only way to achieve this would have been to delay the release of the Steam version. We didn’t like this one bit - so we have decided to go with the Steam release first with the console release coming soon afterwards.

We don’t want to pin a precise release window on the console version right now, however we will get it in your hands as soon as possible.


Lofty goals.


As long as one player in the lobby owns the expansion you can enable expansion content such as new items, stages and monsters for that session - even if the other players in the lobby do not own the expansion. However only people who own the expansion will be able to play as the new expansion-exclusive survivors.

We think that splitting the multiplayer community between the “haves” and “have-nots” is kind of a worst case scenario - we want everyone to enjoy the game and keep the community together (aww.)


The price of the expansion is still being discussed. We want to land on a price which represents the amount of new content in the expansion and is also excellent value for our players.

As soon as we have decided on the price we will announce it ASAP.


Don’t worry, Goobo Jr can take care of itself quite nicely.








Last month I promised you more expansion teasers and I am here once again to sneak the deets out of the coffers of the Hopoo dev team..

The theme of the upcoming Risk of Rain 2 Expansion is the Void

The eagle-eyed lore-hunters among you will have seen references to the Void scattered throughout the current log-book entries. Well, you’re about to find out a whole lot more about this mysterious force - Approximately a third of the new content is Void themed and that includes the new loot-tier I teased last month...






Awaiting your discovery in the expansion are Void Items. These are sneaky doppelgangers of existing items - once collected they absorb all copies of the original item and corrupts them to increase their own power for the rest of the run.



Void Items have warped effects, similar but distinct to their non-void counterparts…



















This is just a small sample of the many Void Items within the expansion.



Once again thank you very much for being a great community and your continued support! Don’t forget to come back next month when maybe, just maybe, i’ll have even more expansion teasers for you all.




Literally me for another month.

Goodbye for now!

Jonathan @ Hopoo Games

Hi! It’s been a minute since we shared some of our Dev Thoughts - so let’s get right into it.


One thing we pride ourselves on at Hopoo Games is our relationship with our players. We love making the games you want to play, and hearing what you have to say about them. We thought the time was right to bring someone on board to make sure all voices, both in the community and the dev team, are heard.

Introducing…me.


Hello everyone! My name is Jonathan and I am your new Community Manager for Hopoo Games. I am a long time fan of Hopoo Games as well as an occasional collaborator (I was a beta tester on DEADBOLT and an alpha tester on RoR2), and as you can imagine I was absolutely thrilled to join Hopoo Games in an official capacity.

I will be your eyes, ears, mouth, and whatever other body parts you need in the development team, so no matter the feedback, let me know (especially you @plz_add_chef_to_ror2 guy.)

You can catch me on our Discord as @SeventeenUncles, or you can email me at jonathan@hopoogames.com. Alternatively I will be active on all our official social media platforms (Twitter/Instagram/Steam/Facebook). However you’d like to chat, I'll be there. Watching. Waiting.


Nice.




The Risk of Rain 2 Anniversary Update is now available on all platforms including the Nintendo Switch as of August 17th, and on that same day we pushed a bug fix update to the PS4 & Xbox One versions of the game - so if you haven't played recently on console give it a try and let us know what you think!






We are now aiming for a Q1 2022 release window for the first Risk of Rain 2 Expansion.

In the last couple of Dev Thoughts we have told you about the first expansion to RoR2 that we have been working very hard on. We want to make this expansion the biggest & best content update for RoR2 so far, and in order to meet these goals we need a little more time than anticipated.

We know some of you may be bummed out with this updated timeline - however, I have faith that you will absolutely love what we have in store.




In our original roadmap we told you what we hoped to include in the new expansion. Now that we’re deep into development we are excited to give you a better idea of what content you can actually expect.

At this moment, we are planning on releasing with:

• Alternate Final Boss & Stage
  
• 2 New Survivors -

[/b] Unique new survivors to give you a fresh way to experience the game

40 New Items -

[/b] Including an entirely new item-tier exclusive to the expansion

9 New Monsters

2 New Bosses

2 New Elite Types

4 New Stages

3 New Interactables

1 New Alternate Game Mode -

[/b] can be played solo or multiplayer and includes any unlocked artifacts for use

New Music

Tons of other fixes, changes and improvements

[/b]
[/list]
The above list is not exhaustive, and is also subject to change.

We know that a big part of the fun of Risk of Rain is unlocking and discovering the content as you play, so we won’t spoil too much until you have a chance to play it yourself - But what’s the point of being a Community Manager if I can’t smuggle some secrets out of the Hopoo dev vault for you all…













This is just a sneak-peak at the 40 new items we have in store.




Going forward, we plan to have one Dev Thoughts post every month between now and release. Not only that, we are planning on showing off a bit more than we did during Early Access teasers, since this is a paid expansion - and we want players to know what they’re getting. Drop by again soon for further sneak peaks at upcoming content!

Well, that’s all for today, thanks for reading and your continued support!


And his music was…. electric?

- Hopoo Games

The goal of this minor patch is to address bugs.



• Fixed Artifact of Dissonance breaking monster spawns and other systems
• Fixed some of Commencement’s navigation/spawn nodes being placed underground, potentially causing a softlock loop
• Fixed the landing blast for H3AD-5T v2 not activating from non-host players
• Fixed language chosen in-game (instead of through Steam) not being correctly restored on startup
• Fixed MUL-T’s Power Mode description not accurately reflecting in-game values
• Fixed “Regenerative” keyword description not accurately reflecting in-game values

The goal of this minor patch is to address balance and bugs.



• Cleansing Pool

• Irradiant Pearl Chance: 4% ⇒ 20%
  
• Can no longer be pinged to reveal its contents

• Resonance Disc

• Charge Buff Duration: 5s ⇒ 7s
  
• Updated Logbook description for more detailed explanation

• Power Mode

• Armor Buff: 200 armor (66% damage reduction) ⇒ 100 armor (50% damage damage reduction)
  
• Developer Notes: Power Mode is gated behind a difficult challenge, but its current iteration is a bit too insane. Players should be motivated to leave Power Mode every now-and-then, and this is a safe way to make it less powerful while still keeping it fun.

• Updated Bandit: B&E and Captain: Smushed challenges to have a short window of leniency

!FINAL STAGE SPOILERS! !SPOILERS!

• Update the rescue ship’s charging zone to be infinitely tall, i.e you can charge it while floating above
• Update escape portals from the final boss arena to be more portal-looking



• Fixed a crash during the last boss fight
• Fixed MUL-T not properly stopping its second primary in all cases when exiting Power Mode
• Fixed MUL-T’s Scrap Launcher not resetting its cooldown timer on firing, making it reload much faster
• Fixed MUL-T’s Power Saw behaving strangely with Power Mode, making it fire much slower
• Fixed stray nodes causing lockboxes to spawn midair on the final stage
• Fixed Bandit’s alternate skin not properly masking limbs for items
• Fixed Bandit’s secondary palette on character select not reflecting actual coloration
• Fixed Planula’s material not becoming invisible
• Fixed some incorrect icons displayed for pings/Radar Scanner
• Fixed Old Guillotine’s behavior for enemies with shields or barrier
• Fixed some typos in the logbook
• Fixed some typos in survivor skills
• Fixed Frost Relic applying its slow debuff even when inactive
• Fixed repeated jumping animations not being able to interrupt themselves
• Fixed Lunar Chimera (Exploder)’s icon changing with texture resolutions
• Fixed the stat screen’s pickups discovered category using achievements completed instead for its value
• Fixed Cleansing Pools not rerolling on purchase
• Fixed Deskplant and Mini Mushrum’s healing wards sometimes appearing underground
• Fixed the secret survivor dying instantly if she got the Perfected elite buff
• Fixed the tracking for the Mercenary: Flash of Blades challenge
• Fixed Loader’s Thunder Slam not working in conjunction with H3AD-ST
• Fixed Titans not showing their map-unique skins
• Fixed The Crowdfunder not working on characters without the display (i.e Heretic)
• Fixed Milky Chrysalis not working on characters without the display (i.e Heretic)
• Fixed AI sometimes getting position updates on invisible characters more frequently than intended
• Fixed drone AI following its leader too aggressively
• Updated outdated icons for Lunar Chimaera, friendly Beetle Guards, and achievements
• Updated item display on Bandit and Captain to properly display all items
• Updated Altered Siren’s Call very slightly to prevent clipping under certain terrain
• Updated Wetland Aspect with a geyser to prevent a softlock in Wetlands Aspect
• Updated some textures to better wrap on lower resolutions
• Updated Bandit with idle breathing animations
• Updated Magma Worm’s movement speed to be more consistent

3月26日！B站《雨中冒险2》主播招募活动正式开启啦~

愿意直播的朋友们，欢迎来参加B站主播招募活动，更有惊喜奖励可拿哦！详情请关注 B站直播“雨中冒险2”专区~

也欢迎大家来围观B站的直播，15位先行主播，带你体验精彩的冒险～

To all our Chinese speaking streaming friends, now is your chance to stream Risk of Rain 2 on Bilibili and you might even win some great prizes. Your chance to win starts today (March 26) and runs through to April 11, so plenty of time to win.

Not a streamer? No worries - come and watch Risk of Rain 2 being streamed on Bilibili right now, with 15 popular streamers already live.

Our goal with this update is to upgrade and round out the game as a whole, and also be a ‘thanks!’ to all our fans that supported us through Early Access. This patch includes both new content and updated old content. Let us know if you like it!

Changes with the 🌧 icon in front of them are changes or additions suggested by the community. As always, if you want to stay up to date on the game feel free to join the discord at https://discord.gg/riskofrain2

• Added System: Morgue + Account Stats
  • Browse past runs and all of your account stats - like favorite survivors, progress to completion, or your favorite equipment - now in the Logbook!
• Added New Survivor
  
  • New Survivor: Bandit
• Added New Survivor Skin
  
  • New Survivor Skin: Bandit Skin
• Added 5 New Items
  
  • New Lunar Item: Hooks of Heresy
    
  • New Lunar Item: Essence of Heresy
    
  • New Boss Item: Empathy Cores
    
  • New Boss Item: Charged Perforator
    
  • New Boss Item: Planula
• Added 5 New Skill Variants
  
  • New Skill Variant: MUL-T Special
    
  • New Skill Variant: Mercenary Utility
    
  • New Skill Variant: REX Special
    
  • New Skill Variant: Loader Special
    
  • New Skill Variant: Captain Utility
• Added 1 New Monster
  
  • New Monster: Lunar Chimera (Exploder)
• Added 1 New Elite
  
  • New Elite: Perfected
• Added 1 New Boss
  
  • New Boss: Grandparent
• Added New Interactable
  
  • New Interactable: Lunar Shop Refresher
• Added 9 New Challenges
  
  • New Class Challenge: Bandit: Sadist
    
  • New Class Challenge: Bandit: Classic Man
    
  • New Class Challenge: Bandit: B&E
    
  • New Class Challenge: Bandit: Mastery
    
  • New Class Challenge: MUL-T: Seventh Day
    
  • New Class Challenge: Mercenary: Flash of Blades
    
  • New Class Challenge: REX: Full of Life
    
  • New Class Challenge: Loader: The Thunderdome
    
  • New Class Challenge: Captain: Smushed
• Added 93 New Lore Entries
  
  • New Lore Entry: Monster Tooth
    
  • New Lore Entry: Lens-Maker's Glasses
    
  • New Lore Entry: Paul's Goat Hoof
    
  • New Lore Entry: Bustling Fungus
    
  • New Lore Entry: Crowbar
    
  • New Lore Entry: Tri-Tip Dagger
    
  • New Lore Entry: Warbanner
    
  • New Lore Entry: Cautious Slug
    
  • New Lore Entry: Stun Grenade
    
  • New Lore Entry: Backup Magazine
    
  • New Lore Entry: Armor-Piercing Rounds
    
  • New Lore Entry: Bison Steak
    
  • New Lore Entry: Focus Crystal
    
  • New Lore Entry: Item Scrap, White
    
  • New Lore Entry: AtG Missile Mk. 1
    
  • New Lore Entry: Infusion
    
  • New Lore Entry: Hopoo Feather
    
  • New Lore Entry: Ukulele
    
  • New Lore Entry: Leeching Seed
    
  • New Lore Entry: Red Whip
    
  • New Lore Entry: Harvester's Scythe
    
  • New Lore Entry: Berzerker's Pauldron
    
  • New Lore Entry: Razorwire
    
  • New Lore Entry: Brilliant Behemoth
    
  • New Lore Entry: Frost Relic
    
  • New Lore Entry: Happiest Mask
    
  • New Lore Entry: 57 Leaf Clover
    
  • New Lore Entry: Dio's Best Friend
    
  • New Lore Entry: Wake of Vultures
    
  • New Lore Entry: Resonance Disc
    
  • New Lore Entry: Defensive Microbots
    
  • New Lore Entry: Titanic Knurl
    
  • New Lore Entry: Pearl
    
  • New Lore Entry: Irradiant Pearl
    
  • New Lore Entry: Genesis Loop
    
  • New Lore Entry: Artifact Key
    
  • New Lore Entry: Corpsebloom
    
  • New Lore Entry: Gesture of the Drowned
    
  • New Lore Entry: Beads of Fealty
    
  • New Lore Entry: Defiant Gouge
    
  • New Lore Entry: Mercurial Rachis
    
  • New Lore Entry: Empathy Cores
    
  • New Lore Entry: Essence of Heresy
    
  • New Lore Entry: Effigy of Grief
    
  • New Lore Entry: Spinel Tonic
    
  • New Lore Entry: Disposable Missile Launcher
    
  • New Lore Entry: Foreign Fruit
    
  • New Lore Entry: Primordial Cube
    
  • New Lore Entry: Royal Capacitor
    
  • New Lore Entry: Radar Scanner
    
  • New Lore Entry: Eccentric Vase
    
  • New Lore Entry: Volcanic Egg
    
  • New Lore Item: Hooks of Heresy
    
  • New Lore Item: Essence of Heresy
    
  • New Lore Item: Empathy Cores
    
  • New Lore Item: Charged Perforator
    
  • New Lore Item: Planula
    
  • New Lore Entry: Lesser Wisp
    
  • New Lore Entry: Lemurian
    
  • New Lore Entry: Hermit Crab
    
  • New Lore Entry: Solus Probe
    
  • New Lore Entry: Brass Contraption
    
  • New Lore Entry: Bighorn Bison
    
  • New Lore Entry: Stone Golem
    
  • New Lore Entry: Clay Templar
    
  • New Lore Entry: Greater Wisp
    
  • New Lore Entry: Elder Lemurian
    
  • New Lore Entry: Lunar Chimera (Exploder)
    
  • New Lore Entry: Beetle Queen
    
  • New Lore Entry: Stone Titan
    
  • New Lore Entry: Aurelionite
    
  • New Lore Entry: Wandering Vagrant
    
  • New Lore Entry: Magma Worm
    
  • New Lore Entry: Grovetender
    
  • New Lore Entry: Imp Overlord
    
  • New Lore Entry: Scavenger
    
  • New Lore Entry: Overloading Worm
    
  • New Lore Entry: Grandparent
    
  • New Lore Entry: Distant Roost
    
  • New Lore Entry: Rallypoint Delta
    
  • New Lore Entry: Scorched Acres
    
  • New Lore Entry: Siren's Call
    
  • New Lore Entry: Hidden Realm: Gilded Coast
    
  • New Lore Entry: Hidden Realm: Void Fields
    
  • New Lore Entry: Hidden Realm: Bazaar Between Time
    
  • New Lore Entry: Hidden Realm: A Moment, Whole
    
  • New Lore Entry: Sundered Grove
    
  • New Lore Entry: Commando
    
  • New Lore Entry: Engineer
    
  • New Lore Entry: Acrid
    
  • New Lore Entry: Loader
    
  • New Lore Entry: Mercenary
    
  • New Lore Entry: Bandit

• General
  
  • Final Stage
    
    • 🌧 The final stage has been redone entirely, with unique objectives and a new, large arena to play in. We won’t spoil it. Please let us know how you feel!
  • Low Health Threshold
    
    • 20% ⇒ 25%
  • NPC AI
    
    • All AI now have dramatically improved pathfinding
      
    • All AI now gets position updates on targets who are invisible only every few seconds, rather than losing the target entirely
  • Minions
    
    • Drones no longer have resistance to AOE attacks
      
    • 🌧 All minions now teleport to their owner if they stray past 400m
      
    • 🌧 All Minions now scale to the ‘ambient level’ of the run
      Developer’s Notes: The ‘ambient level’ is the level of the run that grows over time. Previously, the enemy team used the ‘ambient level’ to set their level. Now, all enemies AND minions are at ambient level. The result of this is that player minions, like ghosts from Happiest Mask, purchased Drones, and yes - the Squid Polyp - will scale much better over time. This matches drone scaling in RoR1.
• Survivor
  
  • Commando
    
    • Update VFX of Double Tap, Phase Round, and Suppressive Fire
      
    • Double Tap
      
      • Now fires a single bullet per click
        
      • Bloom Reset Time: 1s ⇒0.7s
        
      • Damage: 90% ⇒ 100%
        
      • Duration: 0.2s ⇒ 0.15s
    • Tactical Dive
      
      • Duration: 0.5s ⇒ 0.4s
    • Phase Round
      
      • Now deals 40% more damage every time it passes through an enemy
  • Huntress
    
    • Now unlocked by default alongside the Commando! Her previous unlock condition (beat the 3rd stage) now unlocks the Bandit.
  • Engineer
    
    • Both Gauss Auto-Turret and Carbonizer Turret now also inherit your equipment. They won’t activate it, but they will hold it.
      
    • Grenades now have slight anti-gravity.
  • Artificer
    
    • Nano-Bomb
      
      • Tendril Damage: 20% of explosion ⇒ 10% of explosion
        
      • Tendril Fire Frequency: 0.25s ⇒ 0.125s
    • Tendril Same Target Frequency: 2s ⇒ 1s
      Developer Notes: This change is made specifically to avoid the Artificer’s Nano-Bomb tendrils proccing Ice and Fire Bands. The tendrils will now fire twice as often, but at half the damage.
  • Mercenary
    
    • Blinding Assault
      
      • 🌧 Now has a lingering 0.2s invincibility to help chain together Blinding Assaults in high-latency online games
• Items
  
  • Bustling Fungus
    
    • Start Delay: 2s ⇒ 1s
      
    • Now heals at a higher tick rate - overall healing is the same, but the healing is smoother over time
      
    • 🌧 Now has small visual mushrooms that grow over the area
  • Energy Drink
    
    • 🌧 Speed Boost: 30% (+20% per stack) ⇒ 25% (+25% per stack)
      Developer Notes: Mathematically, the Energy Drink was worse than the Goat Hoof for speed after the first pickup, even while sprinting. This change will consistently make Energy Drink stronger when sprinting, and also makes its stacking behavior more consistent. This may make the Energy Drink too strong, but it’ll at least make a bit more sense now.
  • AP Rounds
    
    • Improve visual effects to be more noticeable
  • Focus Crystal
    
    • Damage Boost: 15% (+15% per stack) ⇒ 20% (+20% per stack)
      
    • Now shows radius for ‘nearby’ distance
      
    • Now causes numbers to be pink when active
      Developer Notes: There are many characters and builds where the Focus Crystal should shine through - however, it never seems to be quite high priority enough for the effort required. We’re hoping that by making it both flashier and stronger, players will prioritize it.
  • Rusted Key
    
    • 🌧 Now subtly glows and pulses
      
    • Now grants items at the same rarity as a Large Chest
      
    • Now spawns a Lockbox per player with a Rusted Key
      
    • Now consumes a Rusted Key when a lockbox is opened, and requires a Rusted Key to open
      
    • No longer scales reward chance with the number of Keys in your inventory
      Developer Notes: People have always been a bit confused about the behavior of the Rusted Key, so we made it make a bit more sense by actually consuming a key to open. 1 Key = 1 Box. Since the item no longer gives ‘infinite’ items, we can also make it a bit stronger and make the lockbox more noticeable.
  • Crowbar
    
    • Damage Boost: +50%(+50% per stack) ⇒ +75% (+75% per stack)
      
    • Improve visual effects to be more noticeable
      
    • Update pickup text to include the damage threshold
      Developer Notes: Same reasoning as Focus Crystal - there are many heavy-hitter builds and characters, but Crowbars aren’t prioritized.
  • Gasoline
    
    • Now deals 150% base damage on detonation alongside the burn effect
  • Stun Grenade
    
    • Added visual effect when the item procs
  • Bison Steak (New! Yum!)
    
    • Replaced ‘Fresh Meat’ item
      
    • No longer grants regeneration on kill
      
    • Now grants 25 (+25 per stack) max health
  • Tri-Tip Dagger
    
    • Bleed Chance: 15% (+15% per stack) ⇒ 10% (+10% per stack)
      Developer Notes: Right now, bleed is okay until you can stack it infinitely, in which case it becomes incredibly strong. We want to smooth out the power curve a bit, increasing the number of daggers required for ‘infinite’ bleed to match the number of Glasses required for 100% crit.
  • Lepton Daisy
    
    • 🌧 Now activates in all ‘holdout zones’, like Void Fields, and not just during the Teleporter Event
  • Old War Stealthkit
    
    • Now activates when falling to low health, rather than as a chance when hurt
      
    • Stealth Duration: 3s (+1.5s per stack) ⇒ 5s
      
    • Stealth Cooldown: 0s ⇒ 30s (-50% per stack)
  • Bandolier
    
    • 🌧 Packs now restocks skills by the amount a full cooldown would
      
    • 🌧 Packs now also apply to stashed skills, like MUL-T's second primary
  • Radar Scanner
    
    • 🌧 Now details if an interactable is a Barrel, Chest, Drone, Shrine, or something unknown
  • Frost Relic
    
    • 🌧 Now applies ice slow debuff
      
    • 🌧 Now has a softer visual
      
    • Damage Coefficient: 150% ⇒ 300%
      
    • Radius: 3m (+1.5m per kill) ⇒ 6m (+3m per kill)
  • H3AD-5T v2
    
    • 🌧 Now calculates damage from distance traveled, not speed on impact
      Developer Notes: Even though this makes less sense from a physics standpoint, it will align better with player expectations. Super long fall = big boom.
  • Resonance Disk
    
    • Redo firing logic to be more understandable
      
      • Now grants 1 stacking buff per kill, lasting 5 seconds
        
      • Now fires the Disk at 4 stacks, resetting all stacks
  • Defiant Gouge
    
    • 🌧 Monster Spawn Points: 100 (+100 per stack) ⇒ 40 (+40 per stack)
      Developer Notes: A single Gouge would spawn way too many monsters. Now, having 1 or 2 Gouges should be a reasonable option.
  • Focused Convergence
    
    • 🌧 Now activates in all ‘holdout zones’, like Void Fields, and not just during the Teleporter Event
  • Queen’s Gland
    
    • Limit of deployed Beetle Guards now doubles for Artifact of Swarms
  • Halcyon Seed
    
    • Changed summoned Aurelionite pre-stack scaling from current-difficulty-based hp + damage bonuses to leveling up to the ambient level like other summoned characters
      
    • Summoned Aurelionite attention span: 5s ⇒ 15s
      Developer Notes: Aurelionite’s raised attention span should make it less likely to get distracted by weaker monsters attacking it so it’s more likely to spend its time fighting stronger monsters.
  • Mired Urn
    
    • No longer capable of targeting and healing from allies
• Monster
  
  • Hermit Crab
    
    • Base Damage: 4 (+0.8 per level) ⇒ 12 (+2.4 per level)
      
    • Mortar Projectile Count: 3 ⇒ 1
      
    • Mortar Projectile now has more visible trail
      Developer Notes: When fighting Hermit Crabs, it’s always been difficult to parse where and how many there are. To help clarify their behavior, we made it clearer so 1 mortar = 1 crab.
  • Parent
    
    • Health: 900(+270 per level) ⇒ 585 (+176 per level)
      
    • Update visuals to match closer to RoR1 design
      
    • Update animations
  • Greater Wisp
    
    • 🌧 Can now be stunned and frozen
  • Lunar Chimera (Golem)
    
    • Health: 1900 (+570 per level) ⇒ 1615 (+485 per level)
      
    • Twinshot Attack
      
      • Total Shots: 4 ⇒ 10
        
      • Damage Coefficient: 2 ⇒ 1
        
      • Force: 8000 ⇒ 1000
        
      • Now fires in series, rather than all at once
        
      • Update visuals to be less noisy
    • Raised the aim origin to be closer to its cannons so it can fire more accurately
  • Lunar Chimera (Wisp)
    
    • Tracking Bomb
      
      • Damage Coefficient: 6 ⇒ 5
        
      • Speed: 90 m/s ⇒ 60 m/s
        
      • Update visuals to be less noisy
  • Beetle Queen
    
    • Summon Beetles
      
      • Beetle Count: 5 ⇒ 2
        
      • 🌧 Now summons Beetle Guards instead of Beetles
  • Scavenger
    
    • Now properly spawn as elites
      Developer Notes: Apparently, Scavengers were already spawning as elites - with their health and damage buff - but did not have their elite equipment (Burning, Glacial, etc). Now they will.
  • Void Reaver
    
    • Added a minimum distance between bombs
  • SPOILERS! Final Boss, Last Phase. SPOILERS!
    
    • Base Health: 1000 (+300 per level) ⇒ 1400 (+420 per level)
      
    • Added stagger state triggered by taking high damage
      
    • Item Steal
      
      • Now consistently returns items as you deal damage, rather than randomly, i.e if you have him at 50% health, you will have 50% of your items back
        
      • Now consistently returns items to players in multiplayer in order (1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4) rather than per-player damage
        
      • Now returns items in the order that you found them, rather than in reverse order
        
      • Now utilizes Crowbars
• Stages
  
  • Bazaar Between Time
    
    • Now allows you to reroll shop contents, at the cost of 1/2/4/8… lunar coins
  • Wetland Aspect
    
    • Altered stage layout to add more identifiable landmark areas
  • Sky Meadows
    
    • Reduce initial map monster spawns by -24%

• Various optimizations, both small and big! Let us know if the game is running better (or worse...)
  
• 🌧 Added an option in settings to disable Screen Distortion, like from using Spinel Tonic, since many users reported motion sickness from the effect.
  
• 🌧 Added an team-colored area indicators for attacks from Mini Mushrums, Malachite Elites, Titans, Imp Overlords, Aurelionite, and Void Reavers. Remove area indicators for attacks from Beetle Guards.
  
• Graphics Updates
  
  • Update visuals for Gunner Drone, Gunner Turret, Backup Drones, and Healing Drones to match other assets
    
  • Update visuals for Chests, Large Chests, Category Chests, Barrels, and Equipment Barrels to match other assets
    
  • Update visuals for Bustling Fungus, Soldier’s Syringe, Squid Polyps, Cautious Slug, Goat Hoof, Gesture of the Drowned, Rusted Key, and Leeching Seed to match other assets
    
  • Update visuals for all broken drones to be easier to see
    
  • Update visuals for missiles
    
  • Update damage numbers to be more legible
    
  • Update skin visuals for Huntress, MUL-T, Loader, and Artificer
• 🌧 Fire trail hitboxes from Burning elites are no longer spherical and properly match the visuals
  
• 🌧 Reduced screen shake and post-process brightness on Magma Worm. Clean up projectiles to be less opaque.
  
• Survivor Logs now require you to beat the game at least once with that survivor
  
• 🌧 Updated the Beetle Guard visuals when they spawn from a Beetle Gland to stand out more
  
• 🌧 Improved Sticky Bomb’s logic for sticking to enemies
  
• Now display ambient level on the HUD
  
  • Ambient level cap raised from 94 to 99
• Allow for scripted combat encounters, like Aurelionite or Alloy Worship Unit, to spawn as elites if Artifact of Honor is enabled
  
• 🌧 Add invincibility earlier into player spawning to reduce chance of dying instantly on entering a map
  
• 🌧 Update Captain’s Supply Drop on controllers having non-intuitive reversed controls

• Fixed boss items spawning more frequently than intended, especially when more items drop from multiplayer or Mountain Shrine bonuses
  
• Fixed large rocks in Titanic Plains clipping into the camera
  
• Altered geometry slightly to make more difficult to accidentally go out of bounds on many stages
  
• Abandoned Aqueduct now has defensive tar fully circling outside of the play area
  
• Fixed korean language characters missing in certain cases
  
• Fixed some animation issues on the Loader
  
• Fixed physics issues with Commando’s Frag Grenades
  
• Fixed certain drones not having 360° vision, causing them to attack or heal less
  
• Fixed Lunar Chimera’s death animations not matching the sound timings
  
• Fixed more occlusion issues in Sundered Grove and other maps that cause objects to disappear at certain camera angles
  
• Fixed certain survivors not removing their limbs when picking up Paul’s Goat Hoof or the Royal Capacitor
  
• Fixed Helfire Tincture’s burning effect being offset
  
• Fixed Chain Lightning and Razorwire making trail renderers that were not being cleaned up, potentially causing infinite objects in the scene
  
• Fixed Mini Mushrums making hitboxes that were not being cleaned up, potentially causing infinite objects in the scene
  
• Fixed certain effects incorrectly rendering while the player has invisibility
  
• Fixed enemy Beetle Guards not appearing in Void Fields or with Artifact of Dissonance
  
• Fixed Vultures having base health regeneration
  
• Fixed the ending sequence explosions missing an authority check, causing it to fire additional projectiles for every client in the game
  
• Fixed Stone Titan and Aurelionite missing an authority check, causing them to fire an additional projectile for every client in the game
  
• Fixed broken drones spawning underground
  
• Fixed several monsters playing death sounds and creating the usual visual effects when vanished by Void Reavers
  
• Engi Grenades now properly play impact sounds
  
• Fixed Alien Head particles not being affected by invisibility
  
• Fixed Titan’s laser lock-on only being calculated once, rather than continuously re-evaluating
  
• Fixed Titan’s laser lock-on not respecting invisibility
  
• Fixed clients not being able to use the exit portal in A Moment, Fractured
  
• Fixed 3840x1080 resolutions being unable to navigate the Server Browser
  
• Fixed the final boss’s crystals not being correctly colored
  
• Enemies who are stunned, frozen, or shocked no longer continue to turn
  
• Fixed dedicated server sometimes capturing the mouse cursor
  
• Fixed transparent blue spawn point debug visualizers for certain map objects (like explosive pots) being visible to non-host players
  
• Fixed game browser not filtering out lobbies and servers running on a different version of the game
  
• 🌧 Fixed Solus Control Unit not being selected as a boss due to a misconfigured spawn card

• Bandit’s doppelganger can still be located by its halo while invisible
  
• dont make me say it again

As we prepare to launch the Anniversary Update - more on that below - we’ve also been looking back at our journey with Risk of Rain 2. On March 28, 2019, Paul swaggered onto stage at PAX East and we launched Risk of Rain 2 on Early Access - to wonderful reception from all our fans.

Since then, we have (yes this is about to be a huge flex)

• Sold over 4,000,000 copies on Steam alone
  
• Launched and grown to over 180,000 users in our official Discord
  
• Received ‘Overwhelmingly Positive’ from over 137,000 Steam Reviews alongside an 85% on Metacritic
  
• Gained new community members with 88% of players playing for more than 1 hour - and 57% of players playing for more than 10, numbers we are extremely proud of

So, yeah. We’ve grown a lot since Risk 1 and DEADBOLT.

We have also expanded our internal team, and hired new great talents to help work on RoR2 and future games to come. If you’re interested in joining, we’re currently hiring! At the moment, we’re looking for a 3D Animator and a VFX Artist. Interested? Apply!


We’re happy to announce that the free Anniversary Update (or Content Update March, as some of you have started to call it) will be launching on March 25th 2021.

Our goal with this update is to really flesh out and round out the base game, and also be a ‘thanks!’ to all our fans that supported us through Early Access. A lot of the focus of this update is revisiting old items and finishing up content that didn’t make it into 1.0 release - we’ve added like 88 lore entries. Shoutouts to Sivelos for helping us do a ton of heavy lifting for these log entries.



We’re also adding our newest survivor - the Bandit - back into RoR2. Working on the Bandit was both fun and rewarding for us, because it really highlighted how much better we’ve gotten at making content since the original scrapped inception of the Bandit in internal development. Let us know how he feels!

PS: We know that the scrapped Bandit has always been a favorite for modders to add their own finishes and ideas to - and so we have implemented our Bandit as a separate survivor from the modded Bandit, in order to preserve community-made Bandit mods. Enjoy both!




As we announced in our previous Dev Thoughts, we are planning on releasing a paid Expansion late (very late) this year. While we’ve admittedly been spending a majority of our focus for the Anniversary Update, we will internally be starting to shift towards working on the Expansion. As we develop and shape it over time, we will let players know how it’s going, and how big it will be.




Since our Early Access release, PlayEveryWare has done a fantastic job keeping up with the breakneck pace of development and ensuring that console players experience Risk of Rain 2 at the highest of quality (alongside taking advantage of specific features) on the PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch.

We’re also glad to announce that we have a new, internal team at Gearbox that is focused on continuing to bring all future content of Risk of Rain 2 to our console players with even closer parity to our PC version of the game.

While the Anniversary Update will be staggered from PC releases like before, our goal with Expansion #1 is to ship on all platforms at the same time. We can’t guarantee 100% that we will achieve that - its something we’ve admittedly never done before - but that’s our goal.


As always, thanks everyone for being passionate for the games we make. We have a lot of exciting things cooking - both for Risk of Rain fans and Hopoo Games fans in general - and we can’t wait to share them with you - one day.



-Hopoo Games

Hey!

Believe it or not - we’re still here, and we haven’t fled the country with all our earnings. At least, not yet.

All of us at Hopoo Games have been keeping ourselves very busy these past few months - and we’re excited to catch everyone up on what we’ve been doing.


After the success of RoR2, we knew that we’d eventually expand Hopoo Games to better support RoR2 long term. During Early Access, we simply didn’t have the time or resources to find, hire, and onboard new members to our team.

Now that we hit 1.0 - and got a bit of a breather - we’re happy to announce that we have expanded the core Hopoo Games Team from 3 to 6.


My name is Ben, and I’m here to say
I’m the newest programmer at Hopoo Ga... (mes)

In my eight years in the game industry, I've worked on pretty much everything, from UI to servers to tools, but my player-first mentality has kept my focus on gameplay. I love gameplay programming so much that I spin up side projects in my spare time just to get more of it, so I'm thrilled to dedicate my time to gameplay for Risk of Rain 2. Beyond that, I'm super excited to support this community. There's nothing better than building a game for an enthusiastic audience, so I look forward to seeing your reactions to the stuff we're cooking up!


Hiya, I’m super excited to join the team - I am a huge fan of Risk of Rain 2 myself. A little about me: I started my 3d career doing mods of Project M, and I also made Strafe! Some of my favorite games include Quake, Team Fortress, Super Mario 64, and Super Smash Bros Melee. My favorite things in games are slipping and sliding around and rocket jumping : ) I will be doing my best to keep Risk of Rain 2 an engaging and visually slick experience! (╯ ͡❛ ⏥ ͡❛)╯┻━┻ 💪( ͡❛ ⏥͡❛ ҂) <( 行くぞ! )


Greetings! I'm Javid (Jah-vid, if you were curious). Both Risk of Rain 1 and 2 are games I've highly enjoyed and I'm absolutely ecstatic at this opportunity to contribute to the future of Risk of Rain 2!

Previously, I worked at Airship Syndicate for a few years where I handled a wide variety of animations for Battle Chasers: Nightwar and some additional work on Darksiders: Genesis. Additionally, I've worked on a couple of Source Engine based projects such as the Civil Protection Machinima, the No More Room in Hell mod and workshop items for Team Fortress 2 such as the Box Trot taunt.

I grew up playing a lot of JRPGs, some of my favorites being Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy 9 and the early Paper Mario games. When I'm not playing Risk of Rain 2, I can be found playing Final Fantasy 14, Slay the Spire or Team Fortress 2.

--

We’re excited to work with our newest members, and we hope that you’ll treat them as kindly as you have me, Paul, and Ghor :^)


As we leave 2020 (god finally) and enter into 2021, we wanted a way for fans to know how RoR2 was going to be supported going forward.

So, more roadmaps.



This roadmap is intentionally different from our Early Access Roadmap in both cadence and detail. As we explained in our last Dev Thoughts, we want players to know the game is still being supported, but we also don’t want to sacrifice our internal goals to hit the deadlines on a public roadmap. We’re keeping things flexible - so please note that the details may change over time.


March 2021 marks the 2nd year anniversary since the release of Risk of Rain 2 in Early Access. To celebrate this milestone, we’re doing a free content update!

This update is aimed towards upgrading and rounding out the game as a whole. This means that the Anniversary Update will be smaller in content compared to other CUs. Internally, we’ve already made great progress towards lore entries, quality-of-life improvements, and other meaningful changes to existing RoR2 content. We’re also revisiting some assets - like the Grandparent boss, for example - that were cut during development.

We’re also keeping an eye on our ever growing modding community, and are making some internal changes (like moving away from fixed enum indices for content and more towards scriptable objects, investigating an engine upgrade) to work toward an easier and more sustainable modding environment for RoR2.


Near the end of 2021, we will also be releasing our first ever paid expansion. The hope for this expansion is that it’s big - we’re aiming at around 2-3 content updates in size, and it will easily be the biggest infusion of new content that RoR2 has received. We believe that we need a truly meaningful update to give RoR2 fans a reason to come back and support the game - and we’re sure that this expansion will hit that mark.

Doing an expansion of this size is new territory for us - and we’ll be keeping very busy - but we will still update players on our progress as we work on the expansion. While we still plan to ship the Anniversary Update on consoles at the same cadence as previous updates, we also have an internal goal of shipping Expansion #1 on all platforms at the same time - we’ll keep you up to date on that as well.


The continued enthusiasm and support from the community makes hiring an easy choice - and we are excited that we can match our growing community with a growing team. As always - thank you for making working on RoR2 fun.

Catch you next year!
-Hopoo Games