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When 30 (!) French devs escape from Ubisoft to build their own game, they proved that the real issue with big studios isn’t lack of talent or heart, but horrendous corporate leadership.

For context on that mostly negative review score, this DLC released in an abysmal state. At launch, it basically ruined the game, and I'm not even saying that as a joke or to exaggerate anything; it was actually game-breakingly awful. Seekers of the Storm was likely caught in some presumably pretty nasty corporate greed (the blame of which can likely be put on Gearbox executives rushing it out to patch up an empty financial period for them), so it looked like it was one of those stories of a big AAA developer buying up an indie game, drilling it into the ground, and then abandoning the wreck once the smoke cleared. I'd like to preface this review by saying that I am still very much not a fan of how this DLC was released, because even though it's better now, it doesn't mean that that whole hell launch just didn't happen, and it doesn't make the Gearbox executives any less evil for forcing it to happen that way at that moment.

Honestly, the thing I have to commend this DLC for the most is the dev team's sheer transparency and commitment with picking up the pieces of a disastrous launch and turning it around to make a genuinely great expansion for Risk of Rain 2, in my opinion easily surpassing Survivors of the Void in quality. Over the last 8 or so months, the dev team has been clear and transparent about the state of the game, owning up for the terrible launch (which is absolutely not their fault, but it's not like they can publicly ♥♥♥♥ on their higher-ups), fixing the deluge of technical issues that plagued the game post-launch, and then outlining a three-part full DLC rework to tackle the numerous gameplay-related issues Seekers of the Storm had. Today, around 8 months later, the final part of that rework released, and I can safely say that this dev team deserves every bit of praise they can get now. If any of the devs are reading this review, I sincerely thank you for sticking through with this.

Seekers of the Storm, content-wise, basically adds some of everything: a bunch of new items, several new stages (most notably an alternate Stage 5, Helminth Hatchery), a new final boss, and three! new playable survivors. The only area that this DLC doesn't really iterate on is non-special enemies, which is honestly something I wish they went harder on. Similarly, while the new stages are quite good, most of them are locked behind the Path of the Colossus, an alternate path through the game that isn't too substantial compared to like, The Binding of Isaac's DLC alt path; it's not bad by any means, just kind of underwhelming, especially if you buy this DLC with the idea of it featuring an alt path on the level of Repentance. However, Survivors of the Void also has pretty big problems with its alt route-exclusive stages (the most optimal way to reach that DLC's final boss is to just go there after the main path's final boss, entirely skipping its really cool precursor area), so I definitely think they did it better here than there.

The items added in this DLC are overall very interesting, spicing up runs with a lot more build variety and some HEAVILY needed minmaxing potential. These were the first thing to be reworked (they ranged from game-breakingly overpowered to completely abysmal at launch), and thus have received many balance changes over the last 8 months to become pretty well-balanced, powercreep aside. They're overall very dynamic, working in unique ways while still being effective (even if a few of them are niche, but again, Survivors of the Void has that problem WAY worse), and in the case of Sale Star and Chance Doll (both of which increase the number and quality of items you find in a way you can control), are massively impactful to the way you'll likely play runs. A decision I don't exactly agree with is the addition of the Halcyon Shrines, which are the primary way to reach the new final boss, and which just straight-up give you multiple free items (weighted towards DLC items) for completing them, but that's just me being iffy on powercreep more than anything.

The Path of the Colossus and its residing boss were the second reworked aspect of the DLC, and I think they're mostly fine. I admittedly don't have much to say about these because I haven't actually played this path enough to have a rock solid opinion on it (especially post-rework), but it definitely serves its purpose as an alternative, more challenging route to go through in a run. The stages you go through in the path are always the same (and the penultimate stage is unusually small), so it feels a bit awkward to go through, but the stages themselves are pretty good. The final boss is objectively the best boss in the game from a game design standpoint (LEAGUES beyond Survivors of the Void's final boss, which is legitimately worse than Delirium in Isaac), but because this game isn't exactly made for final bosses, it falls to the same overpowered build instakills that the other two final bosses do, so outside of thematics (which are incredible) I feel like most players won't really learn their patterns as intended and will just blast through them. Either way, it's still a quite good addition to the game in my opinion, especially if you're looking for a twist on the basic run formula.

Today, the final part of the rework released, which completely overhauled all three of the new survivors: Seeker, CHEF, and False Son. Because these reworks came out today, I can't really give an in-depth review of them; however, I can safely say that these three are quite unique and varied in playstyles and mechanics, with a lot of cool ideas that are (now) executed very well. Seeker is a survivor who specializes in wide, piercing attacks and self-sustain with a lot of area denial and interesting mobility options, CHEF is a close-ranged combo-oriented survivor who can easily chain abilities into each other to rack up good damage and abuse various status effects, and False Son is a hybrid character who functions as a playable boss, with a mixture of strong close-range and long-range attacks, the ability to inflict a stacking debuff that increases the damage enemies take, and the unique trait of directly benefiting from HP-increasing items, which are otherwise extremely underutilized in this game. Today's patch actually gave all three of these survivors multiple alternate skills that, unlike a lot of the survivors in the base game and Survivors of the Void, are proper sidegrades to each other and notably change how you want to play each one, giving this set of survivors a much more flexible playstyle than a lot of the other survivors in the game.

If you bothered to read through all of that (or just scrolled down to see the synopsis), I'd say that Seekers of the Storm at this point is quite a good DLC that's absolutely worth a look at, despite its shaky beginnings. Again, I have to give MASSIVE props to the dev team behind this for sticking it out and making the DLC something genuinely great, and I hope y'all check it out too.

Over 90 hours later and the only thing in the game I haven't finished is reaching max level, I can confidently say this is my favorite game of the year but not just that.

Bringing back this more active turn based combat to this scale is so refreshing. I love the genre but I can see how similar it all ends up feeling, not that I mind, but this game reels you in from the first hidden encounter in the prologue all the way to the end of the main story and grueling post-game content. On expert difficulty, this is no joke but the build diversity is phenomenal. There's so many different things to choose from and some absolutely busted stuff too. I switched my builds only twice to help deal with some encounters and then ended up making all of my party so busted without fully trying just from a few changes. Each character has so much depth to just their singular gameplay systems even before figuring out synergies. I'm excited to do other playthroughs where I choose a different main lineup.

The narrative is one of the best I've experienced in a game. Thematically, everything fits together and leads to endings that are legitimately hard to choose between. The characters are well realized and so damn real, especially with their eyes and expressions, with writing to match. The game's tone is dark yet there's beautifully light and funny moments that don't feel abrupt which also helps you to immerse in this gorgeous world Sandfall have created. I did see that there's already an adaptation in the works and I think there's just no way any could fit the surrealist nature of the world and creatures that are in this game.

And the music! One of the best soundtracks in all of gaming and all of media in general. Everything's a bop and there's over eight hours of it! I especially loved the track toward the end of the prologue, the Goblu theme, Monoco and Gustave's theme, and the remixes of the main theme.

The world map is beautifully designed and with lots of secrets and encounters to find. At over 90 hours, I wasn't tired of exploring one bit. The level design is phenomenal too but some might be too large for their own good. It's not really a complaint, though. I think the design really helps instill the feeling of adventure and that's another this game is a masterclass in. It's a proper adventure to an entirely unknown place.

It could run a bit better but it runs as well as it needs to with it being a turn based game. I'm too busy being wowed by the insanity happening on screen, the character's emotions, or enjoying the music to care about any areas where the frames dip closer to 60 than not. Besides, I played on all ultra so I can hardly complain. If I turned settings down, I'm sure I'd get way more which I was usually getting anyway.

In 5, 10, 20 years, I have a feeling I'll still call this game one thing - My favorite game of all time.