The highly-anticipated Scorched Acres update for Risk of Rain 2 is now live, and that means you can take to the inhospitable alien wilderness as a scrappy houseplant named Rex. There's also a new biome, new enemies, and of course new gear to pick up in Hopoo Games' challenging rogue-lite shooter.
Rex has a set of abilities that are split between the plant and robot sides of his character. His passive is that all his abilities apply a weaken effect to enemies, which reduces their armor, speed, and damage. His primary fire shoots three syringes, and if the third of these hits an enemy, it'll apply weaken and, conveniently, heal Rex.
His secondary fire lets Rex sacrifice his own health to launch a seed-pod mortar, which can target faraway enemies and does massive damage. Rex also has a mobility move that boosts him backwards and shoves enemies, applying his passive weaken effect. And for an ultimate, Rex can spend health to plant a flower that pulls enemies toward it, rooting and weakening them.
Meanwhile, you'll be able to explore a lovely and forbidding new area called Scorched Acres, which is an alternative third stage. It's guarded by a new boss called the Grovetender, who fires hooks and seeker wisps and generally sounds quite scary.
There are also new enemies, new items and equipment, and new drones, and Hopoo Games has also implemented some community-suggested quality-of-life improvements as well.
All in all, a pretty beefy update. Risk of Rain 2 is currently in Early Access, and the plan now is for it to launch a full version in the first half of next year, after a year's worth of updates, additions, and enhancements.