In case you didn't know, on August 12th an embargo was lifted with the RoRR development so RareThistle and Dee were able to post Concept art and Scrapped Content!

Most of it didn't make it due to time constraints, but the original messages can be found in the Risk of Rain 2 Discord and the Starstorm 1 Discord respectively.

Making this post mainly as inspiration for the modding community and to document everything in one concise place for everyone to see! (and ofc if anyone wants to make this scrapped stuff into RoR2 content.) This doc will continue to be maintained with any new content that’s revealed.

This doc may also include things that are unused in the game files. Those will be labeled to have been found “in-game.”

This document is meant to be viewed by doing (Ctrl -) in order to shrink the images. I uploaded them full-scale in order to prevent loss in quality as much as I could if they were ever shared elsewhere.

From RareThistle:

Stages

RareThistle: “‘Bitter Thicket’ was an idea for a stage that never got concepted, would be more dense in terms of foliage”

File Name:

“New Enemy Concepts”

RareThistle: “boss for an area called ‘The Drain’. the creature is called the Brass Conceiver and would be a cousin to the Brass Construct in RoR2. It has giant oil bladders that, upon being destroyed, bring to life small oily mobs”

File Name:

“Brass Conceiver”

RareThistle: “Here's a napkin sketch for The Drain, mostly focusing on a layout different than we'd really seen before, with geysers that shoot different directions and a boss that hangs upside-down”

File Name:

“Sketch Screenshot”

File Name:

“Red Plane Sketch”

File Name:

“Red Plane Sketch 2”

File Name:

“Red Plane Sketch 3”

File Name:

“Red Plane Sketch 4”

File Name:

“Red Plane Sketch 5”

File Name:

“Imp Horse”

Dee: “Also while extensive concept art was made for a possible red plane update/dlc, it never actually left the concept stage. Nothing on progression, production, spritework, etc...

there is an imp enemy sprite but that was an unrelated new enemy concept pitch from early on in dev”

File Name:

(None)

sarn: “was going to be in the alt for temple of the elders

it was more or less fully implemented”

In-Game File Name:

ShrineEmpower

A video of it in action (presumably the equivalent of the Temple of the Elders’ Providence shrine due to how it functions here)

sarn: “i think theres another unused shrine that works similarly which i made

it was intended to appear on stage 1 and it gives you a few temporary stacks of a random attack item when used”

In-Game File Name:

Shrine6

A video of it in action

Dee: “ohhh right

this is probably the remnant of a concept we had earlier on in development, of ‘rare’ stage variants

where among the pool there'd be an especially rare stage with tweaked, more ‘unique’ visua;s and a more distinct layout

iirc there was gonna be a hive cluster that was significantly more vertical than other maps as one”

In-Game File Names:

“Temple of the Elders Snow” and “Hive Cluster Slime” respectively

Enemies & Bosses

RareThistle: “If i ever got around to making the Seismadon, it'd be ~175% the size of the Ifrit”

File Name:

“Remaining Boss and Enemy Concepts”

Dee: “i'd created a sprite of the ‘parent’ enemy here too, lol”

File Name:

(None)

Cindios concept art

File Name:

“f311a566d8a6bb040ce52ac43235cd42” (lol)

Restless oak attack concepts by RareThistle.

File Name:

“Restless oak attacks”

Restless Oak animations by Dee

Dee: “the restless oak actually had decent work go into it sadly

he had like 7 different walkcycle revisions as the devs couldnt settle on what they wanted it to be like lmao”

File Names:

“sOakIdle”, “sRestlessOak walk”, and “walk2-2” respectively.

RareThistle: “I was digging through some old sketches from RoRR and found this doodle from like a month after I started doing art for Returns, don't think i ever posted this one. ‘what if the goat hoof and the hopoo feather both came from the same creature?’ the statue sprite did make it into the game, so i guess it's technically real? lol”

File Name: “Concepts8_Bosses”

Dee: “we did have a chimera-related thing as an unused rorr concept

there were a few concepts [for it]: im not sure we'd talked about this but a concept for an alt gamemode was a ‘paladin's journey’ type thing-- which wouldve essentially repurposed the game assets and levels in a ‘post ror1 pre ror2’ type thing

this thing was proposed as one of a few ideas for an end-of-route boss for the paladin mode, since providence is yknow. busy being like. dead.

and clearing this mode would ‘unlock’ it's content for the main campaign as well.

so you'd be able to fight this thing in a normal run as other characters if you'd wanted to”

(Editor’s Note: the “concept” in question is RoR2’s old concept, which was a 2D game where you played as the monsters)

File Name:

“lunar chimera thing based on Dees idea”

The Macrobic Tardigrade is an unused (somewhat) functioning enemy in the game. Its uniqueness came from the ability to climb walls and ceilings (although the latter doesn’t work if you attempt to spawn it).

In-Game File Names:

“sMacTIdle”, “sMacTSpawn”, “sMacTWalk”, “sMacTClimb”, “sMacTShoot1”, and “sMacTDeath” respectively

File Name:

“Shamans and Planter”

File Name:

“Concepts2 Golems”

“started as just a random sketch in my sketchbook with this name attached”

File Name:

(None)

File Name:

“Steel Golem WIP”

File Name:

“Concepts3 Macrobes”

File Name:

“Dire Carp”

File Name:

“Endless Wisp”

File Name:

“lil guy”

File Name:

“new enemy behavior”

RareThistle: “providence drone. cool concept but doesn't make quite enough sense, as drones originate from the contact light”

File Name:

“Concepts4 ProVI”

File Name:

“ClaymunculousIdle”

File Name:

“new peeps”

File Name:

“20220718_095843” (lol)

File Name:

“20210309_132930” (lol)

File Name:

“20210309_133034” (lol)

File Name:

“Grub Enemy Idea”

File Name:

“Lemurian Sketch”

RareThistle: “We joked alot about a bigger gup, i really wish we had made this one real. His name is GURP”

File Name:

“gurp”

RareThistle: “This enemy idea is just ‘Ape’”

File Name:

“apes”

RareThistle: “this was based on an idea that sarn had”

NK: “i think this is as old as his ror1 mod!! i remember the asset for it in 1”

File Name:

“GolemWall Idle”

RareThistle: “here's a Returns version of the Monkey enemy in the files of the OG game”

File Names:

“monkey die”, “monkey wheel”, “monkey fall”, and “monkey walk” respectively.

Dee: “among these, an early version of the [bramble]”

File Name:

“EnemyConcepts”

Dee: “antoher version of the [bramble]'s early concepts: design was a bit busy lol”

File Name:

“sClam1”

Dee: “yeah there was a plan to make him bigger and chunkier, but they were gonna be substantially rarer. ontop of their bounce having a proper cooldown meaning they dont -constantly- spam it nonstop and actually have proper damage windows it'd mean they would have a much clearer 'counter' while also not needing to -always- deal with them

other devs liked having a small swarmer type enemy though so he ended up unchanged”

File Name:

(None)

Survivors

Drum roll please…

Nemesis Commando!!! (We can’t directly post a video on google docs you'll have to bear with us, however going to the imgur link will show the video, and don’t forget to unmute it when you do!)

Dee: “we wanted to cram in this guy as one last possible survivor but time just did not allow sadly there was too much to do in those last months of development”

File Name:

nmando

File Names:

“new Survivors” and “emissary Final 1” respectively

Dee: “actually ill just post all my survivor concepts that didnt make it in here

we actually had plans to officially integrate ‘variants’ to rorr too, and you can see it in some of these.

robomando was going to be a variant officially. when we implemented the system officially in rorr, both robomando and official nemmando were gonna be variants.”

File Name:

(None)

(The following will be more details on each of these, from left to right)

Dee: “loader variant that focuses more on grabs, and has swing physics akin to loader in 2.”

File Name:

(None)

Dee: “huntress harpooner/submariner variant focusing much more on stuff like mines and trapping enemies.”

File Name:

(None)

Dee: “the [third] one was an initial draft for a possible captain ror1 imagining. the ‘barely survived, is all fucked up’ vibe, and instead of calling aistrikes from the ship he'd find parts from the ship in the stage itself and use those as skills for that stage. it was an initial draft so it wasnt fullly thought out.”

(RoR2 Heretic Logbook, this would be the same captain seen here)

Dee: “john batter was the ‘lethal league-inspired character.’ gameplay would rely on bouncing a ball back and forth, with it both speeding up and dealing damage each time it's hit. the screen margins(to an extent) would also count as walls to preveent the ball from just fucking off away forever”

Dee: “imp survivor concept.

if you've played nuclear throne imagine rogue.

(imps invade and become part of the spawnpool of every map. killing an imp ‘converts’ them to your side as allies. can banish enemies to a ‘rift’ dimension where they become intangible except for your allies. can command imp allies to detonate)

*they used to be red at first)

this guy was meant to be paired with a potential red plane update/dlc. not for launch”

File Names:

“fugitiveSample”

Dee: “doctor and med-e, essentially a puppet character, with the ‘doctor’ serving as suport/debuffing, whereas med-e serves as a main damaging option.

it was more or less a solution to the fact suport characters tend to suck to play solo

we never really decided or settled on [their kit] at the time, but the idea was that they'd have a ‘toggle’ that activates/deactivates med-e. they'd have a brief batery gauge that prevents them from being active constantly so you;d frequently have to manage them in that sense.

holding ‘recalled’ them to your spot

doctor primarily focused on debuff-ing and setup/suport while med-e focused on damage. any form of ally healing also increased med-e's batery

((most of this was just on paper and never got heavy discussion so we never got to decide what would work and what didnt))”

File Name:

(None)

Dee: “one of the first few survivor pitches, this giu was in contention up with pilot, drifter, and arti

Subwit: "oh yeah is it ok to ask what the BEEG man's name was gonna be?"

Dee: “didnt have a defined one just yet, it was just either ‘heavy or demo’, with her gimmick revolving around primary-rotation and swapping primaries on the go. (if youve played playable clay templar in 2 you know what it wouldve been like)

this character wouldve focused all around a gun with different firing modes and options-- with the alt skills more or less being modifiers or augments to the primary attack”

File Name:

“Heavy”

Dee: “attempt at a design invoking the spirit of the original hopoo ‘paladin’ concept

mixed with a bit of ‘ror1-ified heretic’

there -was- the idea of having it be four 'bodytypes' with different species as base though

though it should be noted that this wasnt finalized so it couldve just as well gone for a more generic type creature

i think i was personally more partial to it being a golem but false son has already taken that niche”

(See also: the “Paladin’s Journey” concept in the Enemies & Bosses section)

File Name:

(None)

Dee: “focused on the new ‘earth/psi’ element rorr arti uses(pink) plus a new ‘wind’ one.

artificer ‘high priest’ variant, with a more melee-centric playstyle (uses hands imbued with energy as ‘knives’, utilizes ‘psi/kinetic’ abilities more by doing stuff like creating rock pillars and tosssing them, and a ramlethal-styled flying sword)

primary would be melee attacks where she swung her hands around, in a knife-hand like method, the seccondary would ‘slam’ the ground and jet out a big stone wall (icewall but. rock and doesnt freeze enemies)

Util would be a heavy knockback that pushes enemies and the wall (the wall when pushed would keep going forwards and deal damage, dragging enemies along)

special would toss out the flying sword (the thing on her back) forwards. the sword would attack in-tandem with you acting as a pseudo-puppet character”

(In reference to Artificer’s tectonic surge skill)

“pink more or less was meant to = telekinesis. not strictly rocks but rocks lend themselves well to telekinesis since if you wanna move shit with your mind ground's everywhere.

with high priest, she was gonna use the pink and green as her main elements more or less. green was gonna = wind and focus on grouping/enemy movement to push em or pull em places, purple mainly focused on utility and terrain deformation with offensive uses when combined with other skills (ie, when manually destroyed by you or being pushed with green).

tectonic surge creating a platform below you for example.

move object or create object here to create shortcuts or set up traps for enemies, so on so forth.”

File Names:

(None)

—————————————————————————

Matsan Editor’s Note: In case you didn’t know, on the RoRR teaser document (the one where the game wasn’t released yet) there’s actually a hidden amongus there as well. I wonder if anyone found it.

RareThistle: “(blame bizz)”

File Names:

“amongus concept”, “amongus concept2”, and “amongusconcept3” respectively.

Dee: “the amongus character was meant to be like, a character that came out -with- modding suport

it was not gonna be an official crossover lmao”

File Name:

“steve”

Bizzozeron: “[these are] just visual ideas

the only one that had ideas was the left yellow guy he was going to lay electrical traps and be able to shoot through the traps to fire larger electrical balls that absorb the traps as they travel by, as well as potentially having some kind of friction mechanic where tapping movement keys charges something. No programming was done on that.”

File Name:

“lineup”

Dee: “this guy was actually an unfinsihed visual guide. this was not really a finished design lol, it was like. a visual refference idea bizz had given me for a character i was actually gonna touch up and finalize. emphasis on "Was gonna" because i didnt finish em either lol”

File Name:

(None)

RareThistle: “companion for HAN-D named FAN-C 😛”

File Name:

“FAN-C copy”

RareThistle: “Bizz made a lot of silly character stuff, a lot of which was never intended to go in but was fun/funny none the less.”

Dee: “afaik this wasnt even like a 4th of his actual moveset

he was gonna have like. directional inputs and a unique combo system”

FileName:

“heroLem”

Dee: “fun fact drifter's util was originally a vacuum that pulled enemies and scrap in. we tweaked it because in 2d there just wasnt a real use for the vacuum, and goign around and grabbing the scrap was mostly the fun part of playing her”

File Name:

“drifter_3”

Unused Chef alt skills, with elaboration from Dee: “freezing enemies in place was insanely boring compared to the exponentially-scaling damage of sear, so we wanted enemies to be icecubed and have chain-reactions where they bounce off-of each other and repeatedly slam all over the place.

with the way the game was coded it ended up being more trouble than it was worth”

“the pizza cutter was an alt primary. it worked a lot like how [pre-rework] ror2 chef's primary works excecpt way worse and felt even worse. that one was cut bc it was dogshit lmfao”

File Names: “cheficeicon”, “cheficeiconULT”, “schefice”,“pizzacutterchef”, and “icecube” respectively

Dee: “there was never really any intent on adding pyro into rorr, and cyborg was mostly just a visual test than an actually considered concept”

File Names:

(None)

Items

RareThistle: “O_O”

File Name:

“kfl”

(Kentucky Fried Lemurian)

As of update 1.1, the Lost Pickaxe, Jelly Drone, and Evolved Nematocyst Nozzle have been officially implemented into the game.

These are kept in the doc for history’s sake.

RareThistle: “Some bosses never got boss items, Here they are, though they never made it into the game. i'll let you all imagine how they might've worked.”

RareThistle: “Ah I can answer the item question. We had planned for a ‘jelly drone’ similar to the friendly construct, which could be found on the map and upgraded to gold via the drone upgrader. the ‘blobby’ item is an upgraded nematocyst nozzle that you wouldve gotten from putting the golden jelly drone into the drone recycler, and would shoot a much greater number of smaller orbs when activated”

Pictured Boss\Yellow Items:

Lynx Totem,

Toxic Beast, Acrid, Direseeker,

Scavenger, and aforementioned nozzle upgrade.

File Name:

“items”

RareThistle: “a couple item doodles that never became anything”

File Name:

“Concepts7 Items”

Bizz: “some concepts for what the piggybank was going to be like potentially lol”

File Name:

(None)

Dee: “also, most depressing ommission of all:”

File Name:

(None)

Miscellaneous

Dee: “would unlock after beating [monsoon] as every character”

Typhoon’s changes:

Massively increased initial difficulty scale
Elite spawn chance starts maxed out (at 80%)
Global +15% increase to enemy movement speed, attack speed, and cooldown reduction
Time scaling and Director point scaling is doubled from Monsoon
Loop-exclusive enemies spawn pre-loop
Enemy Gold and Exp drops are reduced by 30%

(This version of Typhoon now lives on in the Event Horizon mod. The description here was copied from there.)

File Names:

(None)

RareThistle: “My initial storyboard for the animated trailer/cinematic. I gave this to the animation house we worked with, as well as some reference (like the telly sketch) and they did the rest”

File Name:

“Cinematic Storyboard”

File Name:

“telly ref”

As of update 1.1, the emotes and ping system have been officially implemented into the game. These are kept in the doc for history’s sake.

RareThistle: “we had an emote system planned at one point, so you could ping teammates for help, ping items, and make fun of death/success”

File Names:

“Loop”, “NO”, “PingBubble_CrossIcon”, “use-telly”, “YES”, “ItemPlz”, HelpDanger1”, “Die”, and “Emote_Clapping_Hands” respectively.

RareThistle: “this was a sketch that i did of [Pilot’s] gun to hand off to the animation folks, it's loosely based on a P90, with a horizontally fed 'magazine' that basically just compresses a dense, volatile plasmic substance into bursts of fire.”

File Name:

“pilot_gun”

RareThistle: “here's a bunch of silly sketches, mostly jokes or things for fun, and a quick mockup for the providence trials UI please do not take these seriously haha”

File Name:

“Providence Trials Event screen mockup”