Uploaded November 2023 | Updated September 2026, 1 week ago
Rainstorm difficulty.
Also the footage of the first stage is mostly missing because I forgot to clip near the 20 minute mark, but you weren't missing too much, basically just me playing footsies with some of the Clay Men and looking for the teleporter.
Every Artifact except Origin is enabled.
To unlock Origin you only need to enable all the artifacts from the original Risk of Rain and defeat Providence.
This took me probably over 50 tries, the first stage is definitely the hardest since everything effectively one shots you until you manage to get a Guardian Heart. After that it's a matter of playing it safe until you snowball. Also keep rerolling the first stage until you get Golems or Clay Man as the mob, majority of the other mobs aren't worth dealing with, at least on Drifter. Ranged characters may have better luck on things like Lemurians. Overloading and Frenzied are the most likely to kill you at level 1, do not engage them if you don't have to. The other three are usually safer, just watch for Volatile's missiles. If you get Overloading as the first boss you might as well restart the run unless your equipment can deal with them.
Things like on-hits and healing are not important due to Glass, it's best to dump all of your item choices into mobility and survivability (Red Whip, Feather, Guardian Heart, Dio, Cape) Don't bother with Infusion as that strategy doesn't work anymore in Returns. On-kill items (Will-o-the-wisp, Gasoline) are also especially useful if you get a bad mob roll and it also just helps clear out huge groups that are too dangerous to get close to. Clover is also nice to get early as every enemy is a guaranteed elite, so it can really help get the ball rolling sooner.
Rainstorm difficulty.
Also the footage of the first stage is mostly missing because I forgot to clip near the 20 minute mark, but you weren't missing too much, basically just me playing footsies with some of the Clay Men and looking for the teleporter.
Every Artifact except Origin is enabled.
To unlock Origin you only need to enable all the artifacts from the original Risk of Rain and defeat Providence.
This took me probably over 50 tries, the first stage is definitely the hardest since everything effectively one shots you until you manage to get a Guardian Heart. After that it's a matter of playing it safe until you snowball. Also keep rerolling the first stage until you get Golems or Clay Man as the mob, majority of the other mobs aren't worth dealing with, at least on Drifter. Ranged characters may have better luck on things like Lemurians. Overloading and Frenzied are the most likely to kill you at level 1, do not engage them if you don't have to. The other three are usually safer, just watch for Volatile's missiles. If you get Overloading as the first boss you might as well restart the run unless your equipment can deal with them.
Things like on-hits and healing are not important due to Glass, it's best to dump all of your item choices into mobility and survivability (Red Whip, Feather, Guardian Heart, Dio, Cape) Don't bother with Infusion as that strategy doesn't work anymore in Returns. On-kill items (Will-o-the-wisp, Gasoline) are also especially useful if you get a bad mob roll and it also just helps clear out huge groups that are too dangerous to get close to. Clover is also nice to get early as every enemy is a guaranteed elite, so it can really help get the ball rolling sooner.
