Should You Loop In Risk of Rain Returns?

When you reach the final Primordial Teleporter at the Temple of the Elders you have a chance to replay a level and farm before going to the final boss area. So should you loop in Risk of Rain Returns?

The act of replaying a level before the final Contact Light ship area is something players do to farm if they’ve not gathered enough powerful items. This act of looping and farming can be dangerous since the difficulty keeps increasing and there’s a chance of being overwhelmed as a new player. However, there are also experienced players for whom looping is the default way to play as a sort of survival mode. Let’s talk about should you loop depending on your goals.

Risk of Rain Returns: Should You Loop If Aiming For Providence?

So. you’ve just finished Temple of the Elders and can now go to the final boss area and face Providence. There are two choices, teleport to Contact Light or replay a level. The obvious choice for most would be to simply continue to the final area as this is your safest bet.

That said, sometimes you can feel like your build is incomplete. Either you amassed weaker items or you feel like you lack the edge needed for the final area. In these cases, depending on your time, looping can be tempting to get better items and strengthen yourself. However, I would generally not recommend looping since the final boss grows in strength as well with the passage of time and increase in difficulty.

Furthermore, you’ll have a few more chances to grab items in the final level anyway via keycard rooms and random chests throughout the ship. Furthermore, looping exposes you to more chances of being overwhelmed and dying. Things crank up immediately upon loop.

Should You Farm In Risk of Rain Returns If Aiming For the Final Boss

In the same vein, I found that farming mobs in a level is usually not a good idea either. With the time scaling difficulty in Risk of Rain Returns, finding the teleporter, beating the boss as soon as possible, and progressing is a better option. Grabbing two or three items should suffice for facing a boss and then you can loot the level afterwards and teleport to the next level.

While the timer is on Hard, Very Hard, and higher, enemies spawned from the activated teleporter give you enough money to buy all chests in that level anyway. So I would recommend spending around four to five minutes in each level, beating the boss, picking up what you can, and progressing. Lastly, spending all your money before leaving as much as you can is always better than converting it to EXP. This is because the money-to-exp ratio is horrible and never worth it.

On the other hand, there are exceptions to this where looping and farming is another way to approach the game for experienced players.

Reasons to Loop in Risk of Rain Returns

If you’re not necessarily aiming to defeat Providence, there are a few reasons why looping can be fun.

First off, it presents an alternative game mode to Risk of Rain Returns where looping is a sort of survival mode. You can try to do as many loops as you can and see how long you’ll last thus testing out your builds and perfecting it throughout each loop. Secondly, this is a great way to experience the numerous boss variations of the game like the Overloading Magma Worms or boss variations of regular enemies like Leeching Golems and so on.

Nothing cranks up the difficulty more, and for many experienced players the fun element, than testing yourself against countless Monsoon loops and discovering just how wild enemy hordes can get. This especially goes for online and local co-op for up to four players. Plus, you get numerous chances to find secrets and unlockables, test out new skills, and complete achievements. Lastly, as we mentioned in the beginning, a loop or two might provide you with enough items to complete your build and get stronger for your fight against Providence. Just know that he’ll also get stronger with the passage of time.

We hope this guide on should you loop in Risk of Rain Returns has been useful. There’s a fine balance between reasons to loop if you’re aiming for Providence or just looking to have fun in a pseudo survival mode. For more guides on the game like beginner tips, check out our Risk of Rain Returns hub. Also, we have a review on the game if you’re interested.