March 2021 marks two years since Hopoo Games' enormously successful co-operative rogue-like shooter sequel Risk of Rain 2 first entered early access, and the developer is celebrating with the launch of a significant free update on PC.

Risk of Rain 2's Anniversary Update - which launches this Thursday, 25th March - is intended to "flesh out and round out the base game", revisiting old items and finishing up content that didn't make it into Hopoo's version 1.0 release.

For starters, it introduces a previously scrapped Survivor known as the Bandit (Hopoo notes the scrapped version, which has since been revived by modders, will continue to work alongside the new iteration), as well as an abandoned boss referred to as the Grandparent.

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Last month saw Hopoo Games' co-operative rogue-like shooter sequel Risk of Rain 2 get its full version 1.0 release on Steam following 18 months in early access, and, now, with that out the way and a full console release due this autumn, the developer has detailed its initial post-launch content plans, including possible paid expansions.

Risk of Rain 2 entered Steam early access back in March last year, and made its way to to Xbox One, PS4, and Switch in the months that followed. It's proven to be a hit for Hopoo Games - version 1.0 drew 70,000 concurrent Steam players - and the developer has now put its mind to sustaining the game's momentum post-launch, starting with a free content update for all.

Offering something of an early access post-mortem in a new blog post, Hopoo explained that while its development roadmap helped it stay on track, it did mean "ideas that were cool but challenging had to be cut to hit release dates". As such, certain features - including the Grandparent (a unique boss for Sky Meadows) and lore entries - didn't make launch.

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Developer Hopoo Games' enormously well-received rogue-like co-op shooter sequel, Risk of Rain 2, will be leaving Steam early access and launching in its Version 1.0 guise this August.

Risk of Rain 2 entered Steam early access in March last year (it has found its way onto Xbox One, PS4, and Switch since then), and was initially expected to hit Version 1.0 this spring. However, as it explains in a new blog post, Hopoo made the decision to revise that release window after it sent out a tweet asking the community what it hoped to see addressed in 1.0 and discovered "quite a few areas of improvement we could work on".

Hopoo says moving Version 1.0's launch from spring to August - the first deviation from its roadmap since early access began - will enable it to "make sure RoR2 1.0 [is] truly a complete game experience, and that means not only completing and fleshing out content, but improving and iterating on old features and content that's been left behind."

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Video games are a small window into Chinese life, but they're a window nonetheless, and video games themselves, in China, are huge. China accounts for more than half of the entire planet's PC gaming revenue. In fact, despite it being smaller than mobile gaming there, China's PC gaming market alone made over $15bn in 2018; more than half the entire amount of revenue made in the US gaming industry overall, including consoles, mobile, the lot. Going by the numbers of analyst firm Niko Partners, as of 2018 there were a total of about 630 million gamers in China - a little over 8 percent of humans on the planet.

Huge. But we know there are lots of people in China, and we know lots of them play games. What's really interesting is that these people are playing games in what is, on paper, the most aggressively censored system around. I suspect this sort of thing is why economists love visiting China, even if doing so is a risk: everything is a case study.

Games are no different. Under Chinese law, video games can't contain anything that "threatens China's national unity, sovereignty, or territorial integrity". They can't harm "the nation's reputation, security or interests". They can't promote cults, or "superstitions". They can't "incite obscenity, drug use, violence or gambling" - although loot boxes are, of course, fine (in fact Niko Partners analyst Daniel Ahmad reckons a Chinese game may have invented them as far back as 2003) - and they can't include anything that "harms public ethics" or China's "culture and traditions". They also can't include any "other content" that might violate China's constitution or law, whatever that may be, and they have to be published in China by a Chinese company.

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The first announcement of the Nintendo Indie World Presentation is a great one: Risk of Rain 2 is headed to Nintendo Switch this summer.

Risk of Rain 2 is a third-person roguelike shooter developed by Hopoo Games, where you play as one of 10 unique characters with up to four friends, battling through different stages to collect items and make yourself stronger.

It's currently in early access on Steam with only five characters available to play so far, and is expected to stay in early access for a few months yet.

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At first, there are nothing but empty spaces. Alien Cel-shaded landscapes boasting hills and ancient structures welcome me as I exit my space pod. Sometimes there's an abandoned facility trapped in the snow. Other trips are rather plain, presenting long walks through places that seem to resemble forests and deserts.

Everything in Risk of Rain 2 is expansive beyond belief.

I look ahead at miles and miles of terrain. The sky is always gigantic overhead, giving me the illusion of an easy escape route from otherworldly dangers. For a couple of seconds, I embrace a feeling of solitude. But this is a roguelike, it doesn't take long for enemies to show up and greet me with fire.

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Developer Hopoo Games has unveiled the full early access roadmap for its enormously well-received co-operative rogue-like shooter sequel Risk of Rain 2 - with the likes of new stages, bosses, and more on the way.

Risk of Rain 2 follows a similar formula to its wonderful predecessor (albeit ditching the original's side-scrolling perspective for full third-person 3D), featuring gloriously chaotic shooting action that continues to ramp up the longer players manage to stay alive - with enemies growing tougher and considerably more numerous as the clock ticks on.

Hopoo's sequel surprise-launched at the end of March and was an immediate hit. It amassed over 650,000 players on Steam in its first week of early access release, and sales have continued to climb. With that successful launch out the way, Hopoo has turned its attention to the future, detailing five updates that will take Risk of Rain 2 to Version 1.0 in spring of next year.

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Developer Hopoo Games has surprise-launched its co-operative rogue-like shooter sequel Risk of Rain 2 on Steam early access, and it's available for purchase now.

The original Risk of Rain, a gloriously mad side-on action-platformer, launched in 2013 and was enormously well-received. Its nifty trick was that, having slapped players down upon an alien planet and armed them to the teeth, enemies grew rapidly more bountiful (and tough) as time ticked onward. As such, it quickly devolved into a giddyingly frantic, cacophonous dance of rapid levelling and item acquisition in order to survive. Eurogamer liked it to the tune of 8 back in the day.

Risk of Rain 2 follows the same basic format but makes some major changes along the way. Most notably, it ditches the first game's 2D perspective, and rather gloomy minimalist pixel aesthetic, for some vibrantly hued and fully-3D escapades. It's playable either solo or in teams of up to four, and features randomised stages, items, enemies, and bosses.

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