Risk of Rain 2's upcoming Seekers of the Storm DLC will introduce a new playable Survivor fittingly called the Seeker, and she already sounds like a game-changer for one of the best roguelikes for co-op. She's an AoE bruiser inspired by classical RPG monks, and she's got a full-on, Mercy from Overwatch-style team revive – the sort of round-swinging, friend-saving mechanic that many players have wanted for years.
Seeking a challenge
In an interview with 12DOVE, design lead Bruno Fontanetti – who heads the small Risk of Rain 2 development team under new owner Gearbox now that original developer Hopoo has sold the IP – walks us through the origins and play style of the Seeker, a support character designed to feel powerful rather than codependent. After digging through her art and kit, I have to wonder if she was inspired by the archetypal RPG monk, viewed through the alien lens of Risk of Rain.
"You are barking up the right tree there," Fontanetti says. "That's exactly it. I was part of the initial design for Seeker and I have a great love of that kind of ancient monk, soulful kind of character and that's where we started with this Survivor. We wanted somebody that was able to manipulate the soul and have these very Tai Chi, flowing kinds of abilities. That's where the base of this started."
Here's how Seeker's four core abilities work, straight from Gearbox Software:
- Primary - Spirit Punch: a two-punch combo that propels Seeker forward and is followed up by an explosive third punch.
- Secondary - Unseen Hand: gives Seeker a bit of range by throwing out a giant phantasmal hand from the ground to slow, knock back, and drain health from all that are in range.
- Special - Meditate: allows Seeker to unleash a powerful short-range blast that not only damages enemies, but provides a handy heal for allies. This builds stacks of Tranquility by opening chakra gates, and with seven stacks you get a once-per-stage, team-wide revive that also works during boss fights.
- Utility - Sojourn: take self damage while flying high in the air before colliding into enemies, dealing damage and stunning those in range.
Sojourn uniquely uses health as a resource in place of a traditional cooldown, letting Seeker fly longer distances while ramping up her impact damage and ongoing HP loss after three seconds. It sounds like a powerful movement option, but Meditate is the real show-stopper here.
Dying in a Risk of Rain 2 co-op session stings because you just end up watching your friends have fun for several minutes, steadily pulling ahead of you in item power, not unlike an old battle royale ghost spectating over the shoulder. A well-timed Meditate from Seeker could fix this pain point, getting everyone back into the fight for loot – or making for a clutch comeback during a late-game boss fight.
Seeker is obviously powerful, but isn't meant to break the game or feel mandatory. She saw extensive testing and iteration – making a new Survivor can take upwards of three to six months, Fontanetti says, and even that's a ballpark estimate with a lot of room for variance. Pulling off a seven-stack Meditate takes a long time and requires increasingly lengthy, Helldivers 2 Stratagem-esque directional inputs (which Fontanetti says are a total coincidence – this part of Seeker's design was decided before Helldivers 2 took off). It's not something you can pull out on a whim, but it is something you can plan for when things get rough, and that shift in play style is partly what makes Seeker exciting.
Likewise, Seeker's healing ability is naturally balanced by Risk of Rain 2's Malachite elite enemies and ramping damage, which can respectively disable healing or totally obviate it by just one-shotting you. Seeker may provide a comfier entry point for some players, but she doesn't solve the game outright.
"It feels good to be able to revive just once per stage, and we don't feel like it's very overpowered," he says. "We've tried to really balance it. The Meditation process is very difficult. It puts you in danger, for one, because you're holding still. Anyone who knows this game well knows if you hold still, you die. You have to get yourself in a safe place and be able to enter a combination of symbols."
"We're very respectful of Hopoo's creations," he adds, stressing a great relationship with the original devs, who are still consulted on occasion. "With every Survivor that's created, we look at the stats, the health, the damage. We look at everything that's been created before. We look at very powerful characters like Loader and make sure it doesn't surpass that kind of bar. We will see that with Seeker. On paper she sounds really strong but at the same time she's a little difficult to play and there's a lot of risk and reward there."
The future of Risk of Rain
Compared to the Hopoo-made DLC Survivors of the Void, Fontanetti says Seekers of the Storm matches it in new content – fresh items, stages, enemies, and so on – while specifically targeting "this path for players to find those god runs," ramping up the roguelike balance of risk and reward in general. "The theme of this DLC is a 'path to godhood' kind of thing," he adds. That may play out as "going into a more difficult path to gain some really amazing items and encounter some mechanics that can help the player elongate their gameplay." Fontanetti notes that players "can potentially play more loops if they do it right," which I know will perk up the ears of Risk of Rain 2 players who regularly hit three hours or more on intense runs. It's me, I'm players.
Seekers of the Storm will be a big moment for what's still one of the best roguelikes around – not just the first major content drop in years, but also the first Gearbox Software-led Risk of Rain 2 update. It's a chance for Gearbox to prove itself a capable shepherd after the free-to-play mobile game Risk of Rain: Hostile Worlds, which was not only canceled before release, but wasn't what most fans wanted to see after the company bought the IP to begin with. On that front, Fontanetti is more than optimistic.
"I love that Gearbox has allowed us to have this small team to capture that indie feel. I feel like if we had expanded into a huge team, it would have been harder to carry on the spirit of this thing," he says, tipping his hat to the two-man team that first made Risk of Rain (when they were still in college, even). "All of us wear lots of hats; we are level designers, system designers. I have made levels, new monsters, Survivors ... I am super excited for the franchise going forward. What Gearbox has allowed us to do and create so far has been incredibly exciting and fun for the team. Every day has been this huge privilege, and it's just a load of fun to work with this IP particularly and the people that are on it. I feel like the future is bright for Risk of Rain and I think fans are gonna really enjoy what we've been working on. I can tell you Gearbox is very interested in continuing this franchise and making more stuff that the fans are going to enjoy. They've really allowed us to continue that spirit."
