How to play Risk of Rain 2 – beginner’s guide

Risk of Rain 2, like its predecessor, operates in many ways like the ever-escalating survival “horde” modes of other games. There’s no actual win condition; your aim is always just to survive for as long as you possibly can, progressing through various stages while defeating (or escaping from) increasingly tough swarms of monsters.
The pace of each run revolves around the timer and difficulty meter in the top-right corner of your screen. As time goes on, the difficulty will progress from Easy through Medium, Hard, Very Hard, and so on, with all the enemies being spawned in greater numbers and with greater Health and damage stats. You’ll begin a run in a certain Environment, or map, and to get to the next Environment (in order to progress in gold, experience, and items) you’ll need to find the Teleporter that is spawned somewhere on each map.
Always keep your eye on the Teleporter’s current charge level in the top-right corner.
Activating the Teleporter in each stage will spawn a boss nearby, and create a field around the Teleporter which, if you’re standing inside it, will slowly charge the Teleporter up to 100%. Once it is charged and the boss(es) defeated, you can use the Teleporter to proceed to the next Environment. For full details on all the different Environment types and stages, take a look at our Risk of Rain 2 stages/levels guide.
Each time you proceed to the next stage, or Environment, all your gold will be exchanged for experience, and the difficulty meter will jump forward. In order to survive as long as possible, your aim is to increase your character’s survival and killing potential by purchasing or procuring different items, and by gaining experience to level up your character’s stats.
Beyond the increasing difficulty levels of a run, there is an overall difficulty setting that you can change before you start a new run, in the Character Select screen. There are three difficulty levels to choose between, each of which alters the health, damage, and quantity of enemies alongside other modifiers which increase or decrease your run’s overall challenge rating:
  • Drizzle (easy) – “Reduces difficulty for players new to the game. Weeping and gnashing is replaced by laughter and tickles.”
  • Rainstorm (normal) – “This is the way the game is meant to be played! Test your abilities and skills against formidable foes.”
  • Monsoon (hard) – “For hardcore players. Every bend introduces pain and horrors of the planet. You will die.”