How to use the Strange Battery in Risk of Rain Returns

Risk of Rain Returns is a delightful contemporary upgrade to an old indie classic, remastering everything good about the original and upgrading it in some very meaningful ways. What’s really interesting, however, is that Returns came with a secret character, and the Strange Battery is the key to unlocking it.

Whereas all the other Risk of Rain Returns items work within the context and confines of a single run or playthrough, the Robomando’s Strange Battery is entirely different. Notably, you’ll need to take the Strange Battery over from one run into another, switching difficulties along the way, if you aim to unlock the Robomando in the first place.

While the process of doing this isn’t necessarily complex now that it’s been fully outlined and explained, it’s worth taking a step back and considering just how wild and erratic the whole thing is. Figuring it all out could not have been easy, and from the looks of it, all credit for figuring out how the Robomando is unlocked, and how the Strange Battery works in the first place, should go to Reddit user m0lmy.

Risk of Rain Returns’ Strange Battery item

To properly use the Strange Battery and unlock the Robomando character, you’ve got no less than two full-ish runs to complete, and one of them needs to be on one of the game’s higher difficulties, to boot. To that end, we do not recommend you go after the Strange Battery if you’re not at least somewhat familiar with Risk of Rain Returns, as you may just end up wasting time otherwise.

With that out of the way, here’s the process of using the Strange Battery, step by step:

• Begin a new Risk of Rain Returns match at the easiest difficulty, Drizzle.
• Reach the Temple of the Elders map and search for a special, interactive clay pot at the leftmost or rightmost sides of the map. There are several different layouts for the Temple of the Elders, however, and not all of them will spawn with the interactive pot, so you may need to give this step a shot several times over. Either way, once you’ve found the pot, just break it and you’ll receive your Strange Battery.
• After getting the Strange Battery, reach the UES Contact Light map and visit the dancing golems underneath the map. Look for an opening to the left of the golems and put your Strange Battery into the Equipment chest found within. Once this is done, wrap up your Drizzle run either by winning, or by dying – it won’t matter for this step of the process.
• Begin a new Risk of Rain Returns match at the Rainstorm or Monsoon difficulty.
• Get to the second stage and look for the Equipment chest that you put your Strange Battery into. It’s going to appear at a random location on the level.
• Get to the third stage and complete the teleporter event as quickly as possible. Once that’s done, use the teleporter at exactly 22:00 of your match runtime.
• Get to the fourth stage and look for a robot body that’s been shut down. You’ll be able to put your Strange Battery into the body, and have it get back up.

After the body is up and running, you’re going to have to fight the Robomando and – in most cases – die to it. That’s fine, however, because you’ll have already used up your Strange Battery and unlocked Risk of Rain Returns‘ unique secret character!