Risk of Rain 2 Guide – How to Unlock All Survivors and Best Items

You’ll start off with one Survivor in Risk of Rain 2 – the Commando – but soon, more Survivors will join the roster, each with their own skills and loadouts. However, as you progress, the conditions for unlocking other Survivors starts getting a little complex. Let’s take a look at each Survivor and how they’re unlocked.

• Commando – Unlocked from the beginning.
• Huntress – Complete the first three levels. Play on the easiest difficulty Drizzle for the least amount of fuss.
• MUL-T – Complete the first level five times. This can be done on Drizzle difficulty but Rainstorm, the default Normal difficulty, shouldn’t pose any issues either.
• Engineer – Complete 30 levels in total. As you play the game, the Engineer will be unlocked naturally. This is more of a playtime-gated Survivor than anything else but again, go for Drizzle difficulty for the least amount of fuss.
• Artificer – Spend 10 Lunar Coins to free this Survivor in the Bazaar Between Time. Lunar Coins have a chance to drop from foes, so you’ll just need to keep playing and killing enemies until there’s enough. To access the Bazaar Between Time, you can either wait for a blue portal to spawn or spend a Lunar Coin on a Newt Altar in any stage. Once a Lunar Coin has been donated, the phrase “A blue orb appears” will pop up. Activate the teleporter, defeat the boss and the blue portal should spawn. The Artificer can be spotted right next to the main merchant in the Bazaar Between Time.
• Mercenary – First reach “A Moment, Fractured” and then activate the Obelisk. This is a little tricky since you need to access this space through a Celestial Portal. First, complete an entire loop. On the third stage of the first loop, “A Celestial Orb has appeared” will pop up. Activate the teleporter and defeat the boss to spawn the portal. Once this is done, you’ll be taken to A Moment, Fractured which has a lot of platforming. Once you reach the end, activate the Obelisk to obliterate yourself and unlock the Mercenary.
• Rex – Take the Fuel Array to the Abyssal Depths and give it to Rex. To procure the Fuel Array, look at the back of the Escape Pod in the first stage and interact to pick it up. From here on, you need to be extremely careful – if your character drops below 50 percent health, the Fuel Array will explode and you’ll die. Survive long enough to bring it to Rex in the Abyssal Depths and he can be unlocked.
• Loader – Defeat the secret boss in Siren’s Call. In the Siren’s Call map, destroy the various eggs around the map. As you do so, the message “You hear a distant whirring” will pop up. Destroy some more and then “The whirring grows loud” will appear. From there, the Alloy Worship Unit should spawn at the map’s center. Defeat it to unlock the Loader.
• Acrid – Head to the Void Fields and activate nine Void Cells. To access the Void Fields, you’ll need to access the Bazaar Between Time. When inside the area, look down to find a faint glow and some tubes. Jump toward the tubes and head to the bottom to find a Null Portal to access the Void Fields. Now it’s time to activate the Void Cells, though this can be tricky. With each Void Cell activated, a small field is generated around it – leave this field and you’ll take damage (though enemies will also attack, making this task trickier). Activate the nine Void Cells and Acrid will be unlocked.
• Captain – Beat the game to unlock the final Survivor, the Captain.

All Items and The Best Choices

Items will make or break a run, and it’s important to know which ones to go for especially when playing on higher difficulties like Monsoon. With the 1.0 update, some items have been adjusted and others are brand new, so knowing which ones to focus on is important.

Items are color-coded based on their rarity and where you can find them. White is Common, Green is Uncommon, Red is Legendary, Yellow is an item from a boss, Blue is a Lunar item and Orange is an Equipment item. For a breakdown on the best items, check out Woolie’s extensive tier list below.