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GAMES Risk of Rain (Series)
Risk of Rain (Series) Review
Posted: 6 weeks ago, last updated 4 weeks ago.
Author: Ben Kendall, @GeekDadGamer and Jo Robertson.
Overview
Risk of Rain is a running, jumping and fighting game where you defeat hordes of monsters and the difficulty steadily increases the longer you survive as you try to scavenge the parts to make a way back home. When you die, you start over but do keep some of your items and upgrades, allowing you to progress slightly further each time. This try-til-you-die-then-try-again loop, paired with hundreds of weapons, upgrades and a host of different character classes, leads to the necessity for ambitious experimentation and expert strategies.
In the far future, transporting goods through space on massive trains has become commonplace. You play the sole survivor of one such rain after it crash-lands on a desolate planet. You work to build the teleportation device to get you home by searching the surrounding landscape for parts and braving the deadly monsters patrolling the surface.
You run and jump across the 10 unique landscapes, dodging chasms and traps, using various long and short-range weapons to defeat the groups of enemies and tougher monsters you encounter in exchange for valuable items that help you progress. When you die, you start again at the beginning but get to keep the weapons, upgrades, and other extras, such as new characters with different abilities, you find to use in subsequent runs, allowing you to get slightly further every time. As you play you also find logs and ancient items and scrolls which reveal the mysterious history of the planet.
While each area has its own enemies and items within, each time you play, the stages are randomised, and using the knowledge you gain to develop, adapt and iterate on clever and ambitious strategies for progressing is essential to success. By playing with up to three other people online, you can share strategies and work together to execute even the most difficult of plans.
The result is a unique take on the roguelike genre that combines it with challenging platforming and demands precision, practice and strategy to overcome the odds and make it back home. The sequel, Risk of Rain 2 combines similar roguelike shooting elements with a 3D environment and more powerful attacks and abilities, while a remake, Risk of Rain Returns, was announced in December 2022.
In the far future, transporting goods through space on massive trains has become commonplace. You play the sole survivor of one such rain after it crash-lands on a desolate planet. You work to build the teleportation device to get you home by searching the surrounding landscape for parts and braving the deadly monsters patrolling the surface.
You run and jump across the 10 unique landscapes, dodging chasms and traps, using various long and short-range weapons to defeat the groups of enemies and tougher monsters you encounter in exchange for valuable items that help you progress. When you die, you start again at the beginning but get to keep the weapons, upgrades, and other extras, such as new characters with different abilities, you find to use in subsequent runs, allowing you to get slightly further every time. As you play you also find logs and ancient items and scrolls which reveal the mysterious history of the planet.
While each area has its own enemies and items within, each time you play, the stages are randomised, and using the knowledge you gain to develop, adapt and iterate on clever and ambitious strategies for progressing is essential to success. By playing with up to three other people online, you can share strategies and work together to execute even the most difficult of plans.
The result is a unique take on the roguelike genre that combines it with challenging platforming and demands precision, practice and strategy to overcome the odds and make it back home. The sequel, Risk of Rain 2 combines similar roguelike shooting elements with a 3D environment and more powerful attacks and abilities, while a remake, Risk of Rain Returns, was announced in December 2022.
- Risk of Rain (2014) PC, Mac, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PlayStation Vita and Nintendo Switch.
- Risk of Rain 2 (2019) PC, Xbox One and Nintendo Switch
- Risk of Rain Returns (2023) PC and Nintendo Switch.
Game Details
Release Date: 08/11/2014, updated in 2018
Platforms: Mac, PC, PS Vita, PS4, Switch and Xbox One
Content Rating: PEGI 7
Skill Rating: 10+ year-olds
Players: 1 (4 online)
Genres: Action, Adventure, Fighting, Platform, Role-Play and Traversal
Accessibility: 15 features
Developer: Hopoo Games (@HopooGames)
Lists
View our choice of games like Risk of Rain. This game is good if you want to:
Duration
Play Time: This game will take between 3 hours and 18 hours to complete. Because you start again after each run, the time to beat varies significantly.
Play Style
You can play this by yourself or as a 4-player online game. You can play with up to three other people co-operatively online or locally, all working together to progress further than you could alone.
You can play this game in the following styles:
Age Ratings
Content Rating
Users Interact: The game enables players to interact and communicate with each other, so may expose players to language usually associated with older rated games.
Skill Rating
10+ year-olds usually have the required skill to enjoy this game. You need quick reactions to be able to defeat the hordes of enemies that face you and should be able to come up with clever strategies to overcome the odds. You die frequently and get sent back to the beginning, so players should also be able to cope with frustration and failure.
Account Rating
- You need PlayStation Plus to play online with PlayStation Vita.
- You need be 18-years-old to to subscribe to Xbox Live Gold for online play, but can then configure family accounts for younger players to play online with Xbox One.
- You need be 18-years-old to subscribe to Nintendo Online, but can then create accounts for children of any age to play online with Nintendo Switch.
- You need be 18-years-old to subscribe to PlayStation Plus for online play, but can create sub-accounts for younger players of 7-years or older to play online with PlayStation 4.
Costs
Risk of Rain usually costs £6.99 to £19.99.
It's important to set up your accounts and devices appropriately. More information is on our Financial Resources page.
Risk of Rain
Risk of Rain 2
There are the following additional costs associated with this game:-
You need a subscription to play online:
- You need to purchase a Nintendo Online subscription to play online with Nintendo Switch.
- You need to purchase a PlayStation Plus subscription to play online with PlayStation 4.
- You need to purchase a Xbox Live Gold subscription to play online with Xbox One.
It's important to set up your accounts and devices appropriately. More information is on our Financial Resources page.
Accessibility
Our Risk of Rain Accessibility Report documents 15 accessibility features:
Apart from moving, you don't need to hold down buttons, but in order to fight and move quickly, you do need to rapidly press buttons precisely and also press multiple buttons simultaneously. While it starts out easy, as the time (which is shown on the screen) you've remained alive increases so does the difficulty (also indicated).
Whilst the controls for most actions are shown on the screen at all times, it is in very small and low-contrast text, making it very difficult to read. There are many examples of such text throughout the game.
Many of the in-game characters, enemies and items are very small and can be low-contrast, and due to their small size, they may be particularly difficult for colourblind players to distinguish. For example, a red enemy may be indistinguishable from a bush for red-green colourblind players.
There are occasional screen-shake effects, but backgrounds are static without moving elements aside from this.
Apart from moving, you don't need to hold down buttons, but in order to fight and move quickly, you do need to rapidly press buttons precisely and also press multiple buttons simultaneously. While it starts out easy, as the time (which is shown on the screen) you've remained alive increases so does the difficulty (also indicated).
Whilst the controls for most actions are shown on the screen at all times, it is in very small and low-contrast text, making it very difficult to read. There are many examples of such text throughout the game.
Many of the in-game characters, enemies and items are very small and can be low-contrast, and due to their small size, they may be particularly difficult for colourblind players to distinguish. For example, a red enemy may be indistinguishable from a bush for red-green colourblind players.
There are occasional screen-shake effects, but backgrounds are static without moving elements aside from this.
Diversity and Inclusion
We haven't documented diversity and inclusion information for this game yet.
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