Version 1.0 is aiming for August on PC and fall on consoles
Hopoo has been steadily checking milestones off the Risk of Rain 2 roadmap, but there’s a change of plans for the 1.0 launch. Originally bound for spring 2020, the Steam Early Access version will now be updated to 1.0 in August 2020, and the console versions of Risk of Rain 2 are aiming for this fall.
We’re in an age of delays, but as the developers explained on Steam, “the timing has not been altered because of COVID-19.” Rather, there’s a desire to take more time to make the best possible impression with the 1.0 launch. Risk of Rain 2 is a shockingly great 2D-to-3D transition, and people are generally digging the roguelike action title in Early Access, but there’s always room for improvement.
Hopoo wants 1.0 to be “a complete game experience, and that means not only completing and fleshing out content, but improving and iterating on old features and content that’s been left behind.”
Specifically, following a renewed call for 1.0 suggestions, the developers are working on a server browser and dedicated server support to help address complaints about quickplay, which Risk of Rain 2 has outgrown. The feature “served an important function at launch,” but it’s too “bare-bones,” and the game “has evolved past needing to just find a match – you need to find the right match.”
The server browser will let you filter by difficulty, ping, and player count, among other criteria. You can password-protect your lobby and create tags, too. Here’s a work-in-progress preview:
“While we still don’t have host migration, the hope is that if everyone is playing in a lobby with settings they like, people won’t be quitting for ping, difficulty, or any other fixable reasons. We’re also hoping that a built-in server browser can breathe some life into community-hosted dedicated servers.”
Maybe this stuff affects you, maybe it doesn’t. The next major PC update will also include a new survivor and the final stage, to say nothing of items and refinements. The console versions of Risk of Rain 2 are getting the Artifacts 2.0 update in June – that’s still on schedule despite the 1.0 delay.
