Being a game focused on teamwork and playstyle, character choice is an important decision that will dictate how you progress in Risk of Rain 2 and how satisfying the gameplay becomes for you. Below, we’ll talk about requirements for unlocking all character classes in Risk of Rain 2 along with a brief overview of their abilities and skills.
Risk of Rain 2 Character Unlocks
Unlocking the characters in Risk of Rain 2 requires a bit of luck and a bit of grind with some leaning on one side more than the other. Without further ado, let’s head straight into the peculiarities.
How to Unlock Commando
Commando is unlocked by default and is the starting character for Rise of Rain 2, and for your first few runs, he’s a solid choice.
Although some of the more specialized characters outclass Commando in terms of raw power, he’s easy to pilot.
Commando has following skills:
- Tactical Dive: Gives you a quick way to traverse each level.
- Phase Round: Fire a piercing bullet for high damage.
- Suppressive: Fire rapidly, stunning enemies for 6×100% damage.
- Tactical Dive: Useful for reaching different parts of the map. If you roll right before landing, you won’t suffer any fall damage
How to Unlock Artificer
Artificer is a spell-caster character utilizing the Elemental Power of both fire and ice. To unlock him, you’ll need to spend to first *acquire Lunar Coins* which are random loot drops from the enemies you kill.
When you’ve gathered 10 Lunar Coins in total, roam around the world to come across one of the many blue Lunar Portals.
Moving through this Lunar Portal, you’ll be directed to the Bazaar Between Realms where you can pay the vendor 10 Lunar Coins to unlock Artificer.
Alternatively, you can spend a coin at a Newt Statue to gain access to the portal even if you didn’t come across one initially.
Once there, you can head inside and pay 10 Lunar Coins at the crystal beside the Newt Statue after you’ve moved through the portal. Artificer has the following skills:
- Flamethrower: Burn all enemies in front of you for 1700% damage.
- Flame Bolt: Fire a bolt for 200% damage that ignites enemies. Hold up to 4
- Charged Nano-Bomb: Charge up a Nano-bomb that deals 400%-1200% damage and stuns all enemies.
- Snapfreeze: Create a barrier that freezes enemies for 100% damage. Enemies at low health are instantly killed if frozen.
How to Unlock Engineer
The character excels at balancing the offense and defense, setting up traps using his mines, and providing support to the teammates via the turrets.
Unlocking the Engineer requires you to have cleared 30 stages or areas in total. This means you will need to defeat the boss pertaining to each region before you can claim to have completed that area.
The feat doesn’t have to be completed on a single run so dying is not an issue. Here are the skills for the Engineer class of Risk of Rain 2:
- Bouncing Grenades: Charge u to 8 grenades that deal 100% damage each.
- Bubble Shield: Place an impenetrable shield that blocks all incoming damage.
- Pressure Mines: Place a mine that deals 300% damage when an enemy walks nearby. Can place up to 10.
- TRI2 Gauss Auto-Turret: Place a turret that inherits all your items. Fires cannon for 100% damage. Can place up to 2.
How to Unlock Huntress
A stealth-based character that has incredible mobility and evasive abilities. Moreover, she can hunt down fast-moving foes. Simply clear out any three consecutive areas in a single run.
This also applies to the starting three areas which will be a lot easier to carry out without dying. Therefore, once you successfully enter through the third teleporter, you will have acquired the Huntress. Here are all her skills that you can utilize in combat:
- Blink: Disappear and teleport forward.
- Strafe: Fire a seeking arrow for 150% damage. Can be used while sprinting.
- Arrow Rain: Teleport into the sky. Target an area to rain arrows, slowing all enemies and dealing 25% damage per second.
- Laster Glaive: Throw a seeking glaive that bounces up to 6 times for 250% damage. Damage increases by 10% per bounce.
How to Unlock MUL-T
MUL-T serves as the Recon class in Risk of Rain 2 who can track down any teleporters in the area as well as deal decent damage by alternating between his weapon types.
To unlock MUL-T in Risk of Rain 2, you’ll need to complete the very first area’s Teleporter Boss 5 times in 5 different runs.
At the end of the ordeal, you will unlock MUL-T. The tools at his disposal are quite useful. Here are the skills that MUL-T comes equipped with:
- Auto-Nailgun: Rapidly fire nails for 60% damage. Fires six nails when initially pressed.
- Blast Canister: Launch a stun canister for 220% damage. Drops stun bomblets for 5×44% damage.
- Multifunctional: MUL-T can hold two equipment at once. The active equipment is swapped by using Retool.
- Retool: Switches his primary fire between the rapid Auto-Nailgun and piercing heavy-damage Rebar Puncher.
- Transport Mode: Zoo forward, gaining armor and speed. Deals 250% damage to enemies in the way. Deals more damage at higher speeds.
How to Unlock Mercenary
The Laser Sword-wielding, heavy-hitting and genetically enhanced Mercenary is as cool as any Assault class character you’d expect to be. Unlocking him is a bit tricky since you will essentially need to finish through the game.
What we mean is that you’ll need to continue completing through the different areas without dying until you are brought back to the very first area.
This time around, there will be the newly spawned white Celestial Portals, one of which you’ll need to enter.
Inside, interact with an Obelisk to obliterate yourself, mark an end to the game, and then unlock the character so you can play as the Mercenary on your second playthrough. Bring death and hell to the enemy with the following skills:
- Cybernetic Enhancements: The Mercenary can jump twice.
- Laser Sword: Slice in front for 130% damage. Every 3rd hit strikes in a greater area for 300% damage.
- Whirlwind: Quickly slice horizontally twice, dealing 2×220% damage. If airborne, slice vertically instead.
- Eviscerate: Target the nearest enemy, attacking them for 110% damage repeatedly. You cannot be hit for the duration.
- Blinding Assault: Dash forward, stunning enemies for 200% damage. If you hit an enemy, you can dash again, up to 3 total.
How to Unlock Rex
To unlock Rex, bring your Fuel Array to Rex in the Abyssal Depths. Unlocking Rex is surprisingly straightforward but not exactly easy. The problem: You have to carry the Fuel Array in one of your usable item slots, and if your health ever drops below 50%, it will explode and kill you.
REX is a half robot/half plant that uses HP to cast devastating skills from a distance. The plant nor the robot could survive this planet alone but thankfully they have each other.
Rex has following skills:
- Natural Toxins: Certain attacks Weaken, reducing movement speed, armor, and damage.
- Inject: Fires 3 syringes for high damage. The last syringe Weakens and heals for 60% of damage dealt.
- Drill: Launch a series of seed bullets into the sky, raining down for 450% damage per second.
- Tangling Growth: Costs 25% of your current health. Fires a flower that roots for 200% damage. Heals for every target hit.
How to Unlock Loader
Loader can be unloaded complete the ‘Guardian Offline’ challenge. Unlocking Loader will take a bit of luck because you will need to get a specific map to play which is not always guaranteed.
You will need to search around the map for five egg nests to destroy. They look a bit like the large white mushrooms found around the map and spawn randomly. After destroying them, a boss called Alloy Worship Unit spawns, and defeating it will grant you Loader.
Loader has following skills:
- Scrap Barrier: The Loader is immune to fall damage. Striking enemies with the Loader’s gauntlets grants a temporary barrier.
- Knuckleboom: Swing at nearby enemies for 320% damage.
- Spiked Fist: Fire your gauntlet forward, dealing 320% damage and stunning.Pulls you to heavy targets. Light targets are pulled to you instead.
- Thunder Gauntlet: Charge up a single punch for 2100% damage that also shocks all enemies in a cone for 1000% damage. Deals significantly more damage the faster you are moving.
- M551 Pylon: Throw a floating pylon that zaps up to 6 nearby enemies for 100% damage. Can be grappled.
How to Unlock Acrid
To unlock Acrid, activate nine Void Cells in the Void Fields. Acrid is the most difficult character to unlock by far. You need to travel to the Void Fields, which is a secret zone within a secret zone.
Acrid is a melee-range hybrid who uses powerful poisons to melt tanky enemies.
Acrid has following skills:
- Poison: Certain attacks Poison enemies, dealing damage equal to 10% of their maximum health over time. Poison cannot kill enemies.
- Vicious Wounds: Maul an enemy for 200% damage.Every 3rd hit deals 400% damage.
- Caustic Leap: Leap into the air, dealing 320% damage, stunning, and poisoning enemies on impact. Leaves a pool of acid that deals 25% damage. This ability has 2 charges.
- Epidemic: Release a deadly poison that deals 100% damage and poisons enemies. The disease continually spreads to up to 20 targets
How to Unlock Captain
To unlock Captain as a playable character, you need to complete the Washed Away challenge. This challenge requires you to complete the game.
The Captain is a unique survivor that can control the battlefield with utility and damage – with help from the UES Safe Travels.
Captain has the following Skills:
- Defensive Microbots: Passively gain Microbots that shoot down nearby enemy projectiles. Drones are also given Microbots.
- Vulcan Shotgun: Fire a blast of pellets that deal high damage. Charging the attack narrows the spread.
- Power Tazer: Fire a fast tazer that deals 100% damage. Travels farther if bounced.
- Orbital Probe: Request up to 3 Orbital Probes from the UES Safe Travels. Each probe deals 1500% damage.
- Orbital Supply Beacon: Request a permanent Supply Beacon. Can only be requested twice per stage. Beacons may be Healing, Hacking, shocking or Resupply
Unlock All Characters with this Cheat
Although we don’t encourage going this easy way, we know not all of you are big on hard work. Therefore, here are some instructions on how to mess with the games file so you can essentially unlock all characters without going through the grind.
The file you’ll be changing lines in will be the “UserProfiles” that can be found by following the route below:
Steam > UserData > Your User ID > 632360 > Remote > UserProfiles
Before you proceed to make any changes, create a copy of the file for backup purposes in the case that you might mess up the file and will need to re-install the game.
Once you’ve done so, right click on the “UserProfiles” file and open it with Notepad++. Input “Ctrl + F” to search for “character”. You’ll come across many instances of “” which you’ll have to replace with the following code:
Characters.Huntress
Characters.Engineer
Characters.Mercenary
Characters.Mage
Characters.Toolbot
Do note that if you cannot find instances of “” in the file, simply input the above code in the body above the “” code. Save the file and run your game to be greeted with the choice of being able to play any character you’d want.
