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.
Movers and Shakers
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)
Expansion FAQ
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...
1 - What is the release date and will it launch on console at the same time?
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.
2 - How will multiplayer work between people who own and don’t own the expansion?
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.)
3 - How much will the expansion cost?
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.
4 - How can I protect Goobo Jr from this horrible world?
Don’t worry, Goobo Jr can take care of itself quite nicely.
Expansion REVEAL
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...
Void Items
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.
Until Next Time
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.
Hi! It’s been a minute since we shared some of our Dev Thoughts - so let’s get right into it.
Introducing a New Team Member
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.
Jonathan Cheetham - Community Manager
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.
Console Anniversary Update Patch
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!
Risk of Rain 2 Expansion #1
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.
Expansion Teaser
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…
New Item Sampler
This is just a sneak-peak at the 40 new items we have in store.
See ya later!
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!
• 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
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
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
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!
Anniversary Update
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!
Expansion #1
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.
Consoles
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.
Thank You
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.
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.
Hopoo Games Expanding
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.
Ben Schofield
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!
Nick Bizzozero
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! )
Javid “Snonepe”
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.
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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 :^)
2021 Roadmap
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.
Anniversary Update
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.
Expansion #1
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.
Thank You
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.
• Fixed Sundered Grove’s outer bounds being inconsistent and super far • Fixed Sundered Grove's geometry having a hole • Fixed Sundered Grove’s floating pink mushrooms • Fixed Sundered Grove boss spawns being extra far for Titans and Vagrants • Fixed Sundered Grove having locations where the map disappears if you move the camera into nooks and crannies • Fixed the Environmental Log of Sundered Grove not spawning if you had Abyssal Depths' Environmental Log unlocked • Mitigated additional causes of Brass Contraption corpses still causing endless hitstop on melee attacks • Properly synchronize open-and-closed doors and other permutations on Abyssal Depths, Distant Roost, and Rallypoint Delta
Hey everyone, 2020's been a tough year for many of us as we all navigated the global pandemic, but also an amazing year for games and we are proud that Risk of Rain 2 continued on its journey of delivering robust content to players with our official launch of 1.0! If Risk of Rain 2 has been a source of fun, challenge, and joy for you and your friends, please consider nominating us for a Steam Award. We'd be truly grateful.
It's been an incredible year for the game and we're genuinely thankful for your support, feedback, ideas, and precious game time. We look forward to sharing more with you in the future!