Risk Of Rain Returns will remaster the classic 2D roguelike next year

Last month it was announced that the Risk Of Rain IP was now fully owned by Gearbox Publishing and that original developers Hopoo Games would not be working on future updates for Risk Of Rain 2. There was also the promise that Hopoo and Gearbox were working on one remaining Risk Of Rain project together, however.

It was announced today: Risk Of Rain Returns, a remaster of the 2013 2D roguelike with all new pixel art, new survivors and new everything else.

In Risk Of Rain, you select a survivor and then try to survive on an alien planet as waves of enemies attack. The waves grow stronger, and the enemies more numerous, and you try to keep your survivor ahead of the power curve by collecting items, customising your build, and choosing when to advance to the next area. Adam liked it a lot nine years ago.

Risk Of Rain Returns "completely overhauls the original and introduces a ton of new content", according to Hopoo in a Steam post about the announcement. It moves the game to a new codebase to enable previously impossible features, and brings new survivors, abilities, items, enemies, stage variants, and revamped multiplayer. The original Risk Of Rain was playable co-operatively but Returns is apparently "fully integrated into Steam", meaning "no more messing with router settings."

I enjoyed Risk Of Rain 2 a fair bit, but I didn't love its jump to 3D. It's often a game about soaking up damage and fighting back with auto-aiming auto-attacks, so a third dimension sometimes felt like a needless complication to the fun of growing in power. I'm happy Returns returns to 2D.

Risk Of Rain Returns is aiming to release sometime in 2023. For now, you'll find more screenshots over on Steam.