As I learned through repeated explosions, incinerations, or just being launched into orbit by giant balls, Risk of Rain 2 can be absolutely brutal if you don't know what you're doing. So to help you skip straight to the fun part, here's everything I wish I knew before I first started.

1) Rush or Farm?

Starting with the biggest dilemma - do you rush, or do you farm? And the answer is both.

The longer you spend in a run, the stronger and more numerous the enemies get. So you can't just graze across the fields like a space-cow hoping to find a chest behind every random rock. But at the same time, you shouldn't skip loot either. Because collecting everything efficiently will let you spank enemies regardless of how strong they get.

So what's the plan? Try to never retrace your steps. Clear the outer areas first, locate the exit, and then focus on chests that are far away from it. Once you're down to only loot near the exit that's when you should summon the boss. This will not only highlight all of the nearby chests, but it'll also give you the money needed to open them. So give the boss a ton of lead as a welcoming present, charge the teleporter, and then quickly grab all the loot before moving on. Do that consistently, and you'll be golden.

 Video version of this guide (~11 minutes)

2) Need for Speed

And how do you make sure you loot each stage efficiently? You get movement speed. Every item that lets you zoom around is a 10/10. I seriously cannot overstate how important cosplaying Sonic is - both for dodging enemies and staying under the timer.

But wait, there's more - speed also helps you jump. With a few mobility items you'll be able to scale buildings, make ridiculous leaps of faith, and eventually end your relationship with gravity as a whole. It's a ton of fun, and it'll save you some serious time on the more complicated stages. So whenever you get the chance, steal those goat hooves!

3) What Do the Items Do?

One of my biggest problems early on was not understanding what the items actually did. Especially since some of the best scaling ones are weird things like crowbars, crystals, and watches. Nothing about them really screams "this will make the enemies scream".

While you can try to memorize what all of them do, there is thankfully a better way. Go to your settings -> scroll down to umbrella features -> and then enable inspect. This will let you press tab near items to see exactly what they do - provided you looted them before.

So you'll still get the thrill of discovering something new, but without the downside of misremembering what those all the weird blue items do. Because while those things can be seriously powerful, they can also completely ruin your run at the final hour. Not that I've done that... this week.

The inspect option is a life-saver. No idea why it's not on by default.

4) Which Character?

Risk of Rain 2's characters are wildly different, both in terms of playstyle and the items they like. Because of this, I spent an embarrassing amount of time convinced that some of them - *cough* MUL-T *cough* - were just bad and best avoided.

But now that I've been playing for a while, I can safely say I was a dumbass. MUL-T is actually really fun to play because you can build purely around the 'ratatatatatata' auto-nailgun with procs and damage over time effects, stack crowbars to make the rebar launcher basically one-shot everything besides bosses, or just do some weird mixture.

The catch is that MUL-T and, well, each character requires a slightly different mindset. Strategies that work for the Huntress might see you get obliterated as the Artificer. So give each one a proper run or two before writing them off. They're all great.

The balance isn't perfect, but every character is more than viable

5) Never Stop Moving

Unlike real life, running away from your problems in Risk of Rain 2 is an excellent strategy. The enemies, especially on later stages, do an absurd amount of damage. A lot of your deaths will come from a single hit you didn't even see coming.

So to avoid being flattened, zapped, or unceremoniously ball'd, you need to never stop moving. And when I say never, I really do mean never. Treat the game like it's oldschool Doom and just circle-strafe until you're the last thing standing.

This will help you dodge most attacks, give you a fighting chance against the ones you can't, and make enemies bunch up together so you can blast them apart with a single ability. So don't get lazy. Or you might just get dead.

6) Recycle

Like I said before, different characters like different items. The Commando doesn't care much for the Crowbar - which increases damage to full health enemies - since he's all about firing out a million small attacks.

So whenever you see a recycler - the little white vase - scrap anything that doesn't fit your build. You can then use those scraps to craft items you actually like at printers found throughout the levels, or save them for Newt's shop where you can trade them in for some potentially run-defining items. Either way, you'll be turning junk into gold... or at the very least slightly glitzy junk.

So much like real life, make sure to recycle. It's the best tool you have to course-correct when Lady Luck dishes you a terrible run.

Some items are good early but lose relevance as time goes on, so just scrap 'em

7) A Bit of Defense

While deciding what stuff to scrap, don't flush all of your defenses down the drain. Enemies in Risk of Rain 2 can hit like a truck carrying particularly spikey boulders. So unless you're an expert, you're going to need at least a couple of items that reduce incoming damage and heal. Because otherwise your amazing run might meet a sudden and very unceremonious end.

The Opal is a great example of a simple yet powerful defensive item. It reduces the damage of the first hit you take, which sounds pointless... until it saves your life for the fifteenth time in a row. So don't go mad with power, and invest a bit into defense.

8) Void Fields

If you're nearing the final boss and want one last power boost, find a Newt Altar and head to the shop. Not just for the items, but also for the "secret" - and I'm using heavy quotation marks around the word secret there - level at the bottom of it.

The Void Fields can offer plenty of loot, and time mostly stands still while you're inside. So once per run you can dive in to get ahead of the curve without much downside. Just don't turn into a dragon and get blinded by greed. The Void Fields get really, really nasty towards the end. So grab what you can, and bail the moment things start feeling messy.

But if you have a powerful build and don't mind risking it all, there is a reward waiting at the very end. What it is, that I'll leave for you to discover. Just know it's worth the trouble!

Void Fields really do get nasty towards the end, so don't overstay your welcome

9) Artifacts

One of my favorite things about Risk of Rain 2 is the Artifact system - mutators that mess with the game rules, give you or the enemies extra powers, and just add a stupid amount of replay value.

But, like everything else in Risk of Rain 2, getting them is a bit weird. Each one has a key combination hidden in hard-to-reach areas across various levels - or somewhere in the menus. I won't spoil the locations since snooping around for them is half the fun, but the wiki has all the codes if you'd rather skip the scavenger hunt.

Once you have a code you'll need to head to the Sky Meadow - the fifth stage - and punch it into a machine at the very bottom of the map. That'll transport you to a bonus level where, after you beat a fairly easy boss, you'll get yourself a brand new Artifact!

They're not something I'd recommend using on your first few runs, but once you start winning more than losing, definitely try them out. My personal favorite is Swarms as it doubles enemy spawns but halves their health, which makes for some really chaotic runs. Usually short-lived ones as well, but they're never boring!

10) Which DLC to Buy?

And finally, you might be wondering which DLC to buy? This is a question I'm uniquely equipped to answer because I own none of them... but I also play with a friend who owns all of them. So by doing runs solo and as a team I've experienced both extremes.

And in my humble opinion, I think that Risk of Rain 2 is perfectly fun on its own. You can easily get fifty or more hours with just the base game - and that's probably on the low end.

But if you do want to buy something, the only one I'd call truly amazing is Survivors of the Void. Between its void zones full of loot, and corrupted items that can completely flip your playstyle, it's the DLC that consistently made my runs more interesting. I was pretty much always excited to see its stuff show up.

The other two are fine, but feel a lot more niche. For example, the Alloyed Collective adds a lot of drones and drone-related things, but if you're not really focusing on that it can often feel like a bit of salad in your sandwich - perfectly pleasant, but you probably wouldn't miss it if it was gone. So start with Survivors of the Void, and see how it goes from there.

The DLCs are fun, but thankfully not mandatory

Got Any Questions?

And that's your lot. If you have any questions about the guide or Risk of Rain 2 in general, drop them in the video's comments. I'll do my best to help you out. Cheers!