Risk of Rain 2 Skins: Every Skin And The Run You Survive To Get It

Skins are the only thing in Risk of Rain 2 that changes nothing about a run and still takes real work to get. There are no purchases and no drops: every one is attached to a challenge, and the largest set is attached to clearing a run on Monsoon with one specific survivor, which is as demanding as this game gets. Here is what exists and what each one costs you.

Mastery Skins, One Per Survivor

Every survivor has a mastery skin, earned by completing a run with that survivor on Monsoon difficulty, or by obliterating yourself at the Obelisk on Monsoon. The second route is the kinder one, because it ends the run on your terms rather than at Mithrix.

The practical order is worth thinking about, because a Monsoon clear is much easier on some survivors than others. Loader and Railgunner sit at the top of our character tier list precisely because they carry a run without item luck, so Classic and Marksman are the two to attempt first. Commando's Hornet is the awkward one, because the survivor everybody starts with is also one of the three our tier list leaves in C.

The Prime Meridian Set

Seekers of the Storm added a second skin for thirteen survivors, all earned at once: reach Prime Meridian and defeat the False Son there. Beat the boss and all thirteen unlock together, which is the best return any single fight in this game offers.

The Alloyed Collective Choice

The newest expansion does something the others do not: it makes two skin sets mutually exclusive within a run. Reach the Neural Sanctum and you meet the Solus Heart, which makes you an offer. Kill it and you unlock the Purge skins. Accept the offer instead and you unlock the Decompile set. They cover different survivors, so neither is strictly better, and collecting both means two separate runs all the way to the Sanctum.

No survivor appears in both lists, so between the two expansions Commando, Huntress, Bandit, MUL-T, Engineer, Artificer, Mercenary, REX, Loader, Acrid and Captain can each end up with three skins beyond their default, while the survivors who arrived most recently have only their mastery skin so far, the Drifter and the Operator included.

How To Actually Earn Them

A Monsoon mastery attempt is an items problem before it is a skill problem. The S tier on our items tier list is five items that compound with every copy, and a Monsoon run that finds three Syringes and two Tougher Times early is a different game from one that does not, which is why the Artifact of Command on our artifacts guide is the most useful thing a skin hunter can unlock first. Command lets you build the same reliable opening every attempt.

For the obliteration route, remember what our survivor builds guide says about the Celestial Portal: it appears once a run has looped back to the first stage, and stepping through to the Obelisk is the same errand that unlocks the Mercenary. On Monsoon, that single trip can pay for a survivor unlock and a mastery skin at the same time.

Skin Questions

Do skins change anything in gameplay?

No. They are cosmetic, and the challenges behind them are the reward loop, not the skins themselves.

What is the easiest skin to unlock?

The Prime Meridian set, because one fight with the False Son unlocks thirteen skins at once rather than one. Of the mastery skins, the easiest is whichever survivor you already clear Monsoon with most comfortably.

Can you get both Alloyed Collective skin sets in one run?

No. The Purge set comes from killing the Solus Heart and the Decompile set from accepting its offer, so each run gives you one or the other. Everything else a run asks for, stage by stage, is on the Risk of Rain 2 hub.