Many rogue-likes, such as Risk of Rain 2, are notorious for having inconsistent difficulty and balancing issues when it comes to their item pickup systems. Some runs may seem all-but-impossible due to lackluster drops, while others will give items which synchronize so well that enemies virtually pose no threat. To prevent this lopsided outcome from happening in Risk of Rain 2, Hopoo Games added the optional Eclipse mode, adding more potential difficulty to subsequent runs.
How Eclipse mode works in Risk of Rain 2
Eclipse mode is a difficulty setting in Risk of Rain 2 that, in terms of health regeneration rate and pacing of time-scaled difficulty, is identical to Monsoon difficulty. What sets Eclipse apart as the much harder challenge is the series of modifiers that get added with every successful run in a row.
Every time you win in Eclipse mode, a new negative statistic will be added to the next run of the same difficulty. These modifiers stack with each consecutive clear, adding a total of eight modifiers after eight Eclipse wins at its absolute hardest. Upon failing a run at a certain Eclipse level, your tier of difficulty won’t change, meaning that the next run will feature all of the same combined modifiers as the last attempt.
As an added tweak to difficulty, alternative means of successfully clearing a run, such as bringing the Beads of Fealty to the Celestial Portal, do not work in Eclipse mode. Every successful run must end by defeating Mithrix as intended.
Eclipse mode levels
Starting the first run at Eclipse level one, all allies, including the player, will start every single stage of the run with at most 50% health. This does not reduce the maximum amount of health a player can have, though it does require them to find healing sources or regenerate health every time they start a new level. Clearing this run will unlock Eclipse level two, and so on with additional wins on each new tier.
The next run with Eclipse two will halve the radius of every level-ending teleporter, making it harder to escape tense, last-minute fights at the end of a stage. On the run after that, Eclipse three doubles all fall damage and makes falls lethal, rather than reducing your remaining health to one. Both of these Eclipse tiers will also feature the modifiers of the tiers cleared before them.
Eclipse level four is where difficulty notably begins to ramp up, as enemy movement speed is boosted by 40%, making it harder to both land hits on targets and escape from danger. Eclipse five then halves healing for all allies from any sources, be they passive regeneration or active healing items. While Eclipse six’s modifier of 20% less gold from enemies can be mitigated from gathering it from alternative sources such as barrels, these sources drop far less gold at higher difficulties, meaning that you’ll have much less currency to work with.
Related: All items and equipment in Risk of Rain 2
Eclipse mode’s punishment reaches a peak beyond level seven, where enemy cooldowns are halved. This allows all enemies to lash out with their attacks at twice the rate, effectively pumping out twice the damage per second. When combined with Eclipse level four’s enemy movement speed buff, level seven makes even the lowliest of standard foes extremely dangerous.
Eclipse level eight — the final and most difficult tier to play — introduces the effect of permanent damage to you and your allies. Suffering any type of attack will remove a number of points from your maximum possible health, with the imposed reduction proportional to the amount of damage you take in the attack. You won’t be able to heal or regenerate this lost part of your health bar back until the start of the next stage, when permanent damage is reset.
