No matter where you’re reading this from, there might be a slightly higher chance of precipitation in your area now that Alloyed Collective, the new DLC for Risk of Rain 2, has hit the market today. So grab your umbrella, as unlike last year’s Seekers of The Storm DLC, which didn’t review very favorably, Alloyed Collective looks like it’s making good landfall with fans based on the Steam community’s reaction so far. The new DLC is launching with two new survivors, six new enemies, seven new stages (wow), seven new drones, new secrets, new bosses, 18 new items to weather the storm with, and of course, more music produced in collaboration with fan-legend Chris Christodoulou. That’s truly list that leaves you breathless trying to read it out, and apparently the expansion isn’t just about quantity, it’s about quality. In a developer diary posted in June of this year, the game’s current team at Gearbox Software made a bombastic claim:
We want to make Alloyed Collective the single best addition to Risk of Rain ever–and that is one hell of a high bar.
And from first impressions, it seems like the devs have indeed passed that bar. Although this is the third DLC for the game, it is only the second that Gearbox has produced since they acquired the Risk of Rain franchise from Hopoo Games in 2022. Duncan Drummond and Paul Morse, the original duo dev team that kicked off the series from their university, halted work on further expansions after the Survivors of The Void DLC, and as of last year they now work at Valve Corporation. Since then, while Gearbox didn’t make great impressions with Seekers of The Storm, not only did they listen to community feedback and fix lot of gripes fans had with it, but they actively involved them in the development of Alloyed Collective by making them a part of their “Ultimate Risk of Rain Content Team.” They acknowledge in patch notes that modders have made the game as big as it is, and as such they were recruited to help produce the DLC. So regardless of the previous change in management and the disappointment it wrought, heading forward–or at least here with Alloyed Collective–Gearbox has tried to make a treasured indie title even better by giving those who love it so the chance to make it the best it’s ever been.