Risk of Rain Returns review

pcgamer.com:

What is it? An update to the classic action-roguelike with a few new elements in the mix.

Release date November 8, 2023

Expect to pay £12.79/$15

Developer Hopoo Games

Publisher Gearbox Publishing

Reviewed on Radeon 5700 XT, i5-9600K, 16GB RAM / Nvidia Geforce GTX 1650, Ryzen 5 4600H, 8GB RAM

Steam Deck N/A

Link Official site 

With Risk of Rain Returns, the classic action-roguelike franchise has come full circle—as has my scepticism about its latest direction. A fervent devotee of the original, I remember responding with incredulity when a full-3D sequel was announced back in 2017. After sinking over 150 hours in that game I became a full-fledged convert, so much so that I now find myself with a paradoxically similar set of doubts: am I ready, or even willing, to smash my escape-pod door open and resume dealing death in a side-scrolling 2D world once again?

For anyone not conversant with the series, Risk of Rain is one of the key titles that kickstarted the roguelike revolution of the mid 2010s. A lone traveller crash-lands on an inhospitable planet and has to survive across a series of stages to reach the spaceship that allows them to escape. To achieve that, you had to purchase and amass a frankly ridiculous amount of power-ups that synergise in wild and unpredictable ways, unleashing glorious chaos onscreen. The gimmick that differentiated it from peers like The Binding of Isaac was the fact that difficulty rose with time. Finding a balance between thorough exploration to beef up your survivor and swift progress to avoid getting overwhelmed by increasingly powerful enemies presented you with a perpetual, tantalising dilemma. The feeling persists in the remaster, somehow coexisting with a less energising sense of