A brand new Anniversary Update for Risk of Rain 2 went live on March 25, and it brought a brand new mystery survivor known as the Heretic.

Here's everything you need to know about the new character, and how you can play as the Heretic. If you haven't seen it already, DualShockers have got the full patch notes and information surrounding the Risk of Rain 2 Anniversary Update, you can check it out at the link below.

What Is Risk of Rain 2?

Risk of Rain 2 is a third-person shooter developed by Hopoo Games, it was released for PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch in August of 2020. The game most recently received an Anniversary Update to celebrate 2 years since the release of it's Early Access version.

The sequel to the popular title Risk of Rain follows a similar approach in terms of gameplay, up to four players must progress through several levels whilst taking out enemies.

Each of these levels will have a teleporter that players must find and activate, once activated they must survive the hoard of enemies and bosses until the teleporter is fully activated.

One of the biggest changes from the original title, is Risk of Rain 2 is now set in a 3D environment as opposed to 2D.

Risk of Rain 2 is available right now on Steam, PlayStaion 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and Google Stadia.

How To Unlock Heretic In Risk of Rain 2

If you're wondering how you can play as Heretic after the latest update on March 25, here's how.

The Heretic is a unique character that isn't actually playable from the character select screen, instead, there's a different method to obtaining this character.

To play as the Heretic you will need to collect all four of the Heresy Items in-game, you will then turn into the Heretic. It's also worth noting that since the latest update, there has been two new Heresy Items added, meaning there are now four to collect.

Unfortunately, even after you collect the four Heresy Items, the Heretic won't become a selectable character to play with. If you want to continue playing as the Heretic in Risk of Rain 2, you will need to continuously collect the four items.

Heretic Skills

So what special abilities or skills does the Heretic have? Well, the abilities will come from the Heresy Item set. This means that you will have the following abilities as the Heretic:

  • Visions of Heresy - Hungering Gaze
    Fire a flurry of tracking shards that detonate after a delay, dealing 120% base damage.
  • Hooks of Heresy - Slicing Maelstrom
    Charge up a projectile that deals 175% damage per second to nearby enemies, exploding after 3 seconds to deal 700% damage and root enemies for 3 seconds.
  • Essence of Heresy - Ruin
    Dealing damage adds a stack of Ruin for 10 seconds. Activating the skill detonates all Ruin stacks at unlimited range, dealing 300% damage plus 120% damage per stack of Ruin.
  • Strides of Heresy - Shadowfade
    Fade away, becoming intangible and gaining +30% movement speed. Heal for 18.2% of your maximum health. Lasts 3 seconds.

The Heretic also has a total of 440 health (+132 per level) and deals a total of 18 damage (+3.6 per level).