Two months after the disastrous Seekers of the Storm expansion, Gearbox details its Risk of Rain 2 rescue plan, and players are actually pretty excited

pcgamer.com:

A little more than two months after releasing Seekers of the Storm, its first expansion for Risk of Rain 2, Gearbox Software has shared its plan for the long-term future of the expansion, which it hopes will «build Seekers of the Storm into something that can be celebrated by the community for years to come.»

Gearbox acquired the Risk of Rain series in 2022, pledging to bring players «world-class content» and ensure «a bright future for this genre-leading franchise.» As we noted at the time, quite a few fans weren't convinced, and it turns out they were on to something: Seekers of the Storm arrived in 2024 in an absolutely dreadful state that, because of changes it made to the base game, caused big headaches for everyone, even people who didn't buy the expansion.

A couple small updates have been released since then, but now we have a more fulsome look at Gearbox's cleanup plan, which includes «significant changes» to Seekers of the Storm. Gearbox said it's «exploring» updates, which suggests to me that at least some of it isn't carved in stone at this point, but the general strategy is set to unfold in three phases focusing on Items and Elites, the False Son boss fight, and Survivors.

It's going to be a major undertaking: All but one of the new items added in Seekers of the Storm are being completely redesigned to make them feel more «transformational» and a better fit with «existing build synergies,» and the False Son fight is being redesigned and rebalanced to make it «more clear and fair.» All three of the game's survivors will get «large improvements,» with a particular focus on Chef, who's being rebuilt and buffed to be more «elegant» and powerful.

Specific time frames haven't been revealed but Gearbox said the changes will roll out over the next few months. «This is a huge undertaking, but one that the team is excited about,» Gearbox wrote. «We also want to thank everyone for giving us time to put together a wholistic plan. We know that you're eager to see