What Risk of Rain Returns is
Risk of Rain Returns is a 2D action roguelike set on the planet Petrichor V, where you drop to the surface, fight through hordes of monsters, and dig up cargo that powers you up. Each run is a fresh climb: you pick a Survivor, clear stages, and stack items that change how you fight. The item pool is where the runs get strange. The Ukulele adds electrifying music to your attacks, the Brilliant Behemoth turns even basic hits into explosions, and the real fun comes from combining them — chain lightning that explodes is a starting point, not a ceiling. The planet itself is full of secrets tucked under logs, stones, and Gups, so exploration pays off alongside combat.
Playing it with your group
You can drop in solo or with your crew, with up to four-player online and couch co-op, plus Remote Play Together for when someone wants to join from your screen. The roster is 15 Survivors, each with their own abilities to learn, and the game encourages picking ones that complement each other's strengths and weaknesses — or just picking whoever has the biggest guns. Chef returns to slice and dice, Enforcer holds the front line and shields the team, and Acrid lays down toxic sludge. The Drifter is new here: she gathers scrap from defeated enemies and can spawn items that temporarily empower her teammates, or keep the scrap and unleash area-wide destruction herself. That makes her a natural fit for a group that wants support and damage in one package. The multiplayer services have been reworked so the only thing standing between your crew and survival is the enemy hordes.
Before you start
Runs get progressively harder the longer you go, so expect to die, learn, and come back stronger — that loop is the core of the game. Skill mastery matters as much as loot, since each Survivor has abilities worth practicing. If you want to bend the rules, more than 10 Artifacts mutate a run: one might give you a random equipment item that changes on every use, another triggers a rampant Imp invasion every 10 minutes, and you can combine them for effects you haven't seen before. Content from Risk of Rain 2 has been carried over alongside entirely new Survivors, so veterans will find familiar ground with new things to master.