Game

Risk of Rain 2

2020

0Score

Low Cash-Grab Risk

The sourced concerns are substantially offset by delivered value.

What counts as a cash grab?

Commercial extraction prioritized over meaningful consumer or creative value. Profit, popularity, adaptations, sequels, remakes, high budgets, and normal marketing do not count by themselves.

Why?

Risk of Rain 2 and its paid expansions show clear signs of substantial post-release development rather than predatory extraction. The official Steam store lists a $14.99 Survivors of the Void expansion that adds two new survivors, new stages, items, and corrupted mechanics. The base game and DLC have overwhelmingly positive user reviews and favorable critical coverage. I found no credible storefront evidence of loot boxes, pay-to-win mechanics, or microtransaction systems tied to core progression, though the DLC gates survivor selection and permanent unlocks for non-owners.

Survivors of the Void is a priced expansion ($14.99) that adds two new survivors, new stages, and many items according to the official Steam store.
The base game and its DLC have overwhelmingly positive user reviews on Steam and favorable critical coverage on Metacritic indicating perceived consumer value.
I found no evidence on official storefront pages or major coverage of predatory microtransactions, loot boxes, or pay-to-win systems tied to core progression.

View full breakdown

The DLC allows non-owners to experience monsters and levels in a lobby but restricts survivor selection and permanent unlocks to purchasers, a standard DLC access model.

Score factors

Direction	Factor	Evidence	Impact
Against	Substantive new content in DLC	Survivors of the Void adds two new playable survivors, multiple new stages, 14 void items plus other items and equipment, indicating substantial new gameplay content.[1][2]	-18
Against	Critical and user reception	The base game and its DLC show overwhelmingly positive user reviews on Steam and favorable critic scores on aggregators, supporting consumer-perceived value.[1][3]	-16
Against	Ongoing updates and expansions	Risk of Rain 2 left early access in 2020 and received major post-release expansions and ongoing updates, demonstrating continued developer investment.[5][4]	-14
For	Paid expansion pricing	Survivors of the Void is sold as a $14.99 expansion on Steam and is also offered in discounted bundles with the base game.[1]	+10
For	DLC access and multiplayer gating	Steam notes that one owner in a lobby enables monsters, levels, and items for everyone, but non-owners cannot select the two new survivors or permanently unlock the new items and logbook content.[1]	+7
Against	No storefront microtransactions detected	Official storefront listings and DLC pages show paid expansions but do not list in-game microtransactions, loot boxes, or a battle pass tied to core progression.[1]	-6

Confidence: High · Official storefront pages, a community-maintained wiki, SteamDB and review aggregators provide clear, directly relevant evidence about DLC content, pricing, gating, and reception, though internal financial motives and non-public monetization data are not accessible. · Researched 2026-08-01

Sources reviewed

View 15 more sources

[11]steamdb.info
[12]hopoo.tumblr.com
[13]hopoo.tumblr.com
[14]www.ftc.gov
[15]www.youtube.com
[16]consumer.ftc.gov
[17]par.nsf.gov
[18]wsgc.wa.gov
[19]thearf-org-unified-admin.s3.amazonaws.com
[20]www.youtube.com
[21]www.hawley.senate.gov
[22]arxiv.org
[23]en.wikipedia.org
[24]en.wikipedia.org
[25]en.wikipedia.org

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