With some new cinematic cutscenes that appropriately mark the beginning and the end of the title, Hopoo Games Risk of Rain 2 has finally exited out of Early Access while maintaining a legendary ‘Overwhelmingly Positive’ rating on the Steam platform with 64,450 votes tallied at time of writing.
Following on the back of the success of the original Risk of Rain which pitted players in a 2-dimensional side-scroller rogue-lite, Hopoo Games began the Early Access journey in March 2019 when they were ‘floored’ by the overwhelming support they’ve received when they launched in the Steam program alongside of their publishing partner Gearbox Publishing.
A year and a half of public development and they’ve added enough content where they can confidently call the current version ‘1.0’; don’t fret, though, as Hopoo has stated often in the past that they are going to be continuing to work on new content for the fascinating title.
In the 1.0 patch, there was the expected massive slew of balance tweaks and bug fixes, but there are a few primary notes that you should be aware of before you make planetfall once again.
Hopoo thankfully added a server browser that will take over the ‘barebones’ functionality that was Quickplay; users can now browse matches while looking through features that each shot is offering, meaning that you won’t dive into a ‘disconnect server’ repeatedly until you simply host your own.
Risk of Rain 2 is officially out of Early Access on Steam & the 1.0 Update has arrived! The fifth content update for Risk of Rain 2 is available now for everyone to enjoy!
Patch Notes: https://t.co/wmism2fImh pic.twitter.com/AcYLk5guQk
— Risk of Rain (@RiskofRain) August 11, 2020
This also means that the Quickplay option has entirely vanished, and is unlikely to return; if you were a fan of the option, you’re stuck using the server browser. Note that the server browser is fast and stable, with a vast quantity of options to select from so you can get your preferred match ranging from difficulty to starting map.
Dedicated servers are now very much a thing as well, meaning you can get your own server up and running for family and friends to play together within.
A new survivor named ‘Captain’ has been added, rounding out the number of currently available heroes to ten, with six vacant portraits currently at the bottom of the selection; it is presumed that more heroes will be added, but Hopoo hasn’t commented on when and how they should be expected.
A new mechanic has been added as well called the ‘scrapper’ which was mentioned in a developer brief on August 4; the scrapper allows you to select items that you’re carrying and convert them into scrap which will then be selected first at 3D printers; using scrappers can effectively allow you to fine-tune your run through the planet while hedging bets that the appropriate 3D printer will come across your path.
Risk of Rain 2 has had a monumental journey thus far, and there’s a good chance that it’s just getting started based upon the overwhelming amount of support they’ve experienced thus far. It’s good to be a survivor.