Risk of Rain 2 Items and Artifacts: All 20 Explained

Risk of Rain 2's item pool has grown across three separate paid expansions since 2020, and this Risk of Rain 2 items and artifacts guide covers the current tier system plus all 20 confirmed artifacts, sourced from the game's own wiki and official patch notes rather than a pre-DLC memory of the roster.

TL;DR: Items split into 8 confirmed categories: Common, Uncommon, Legendary, Boss, Lunar, Void, Equipment, and Lunar Equipment, plus a 9th DLC-exclusive Meal Item category added by Alloyed Collective. There are 20 confirmed artifacts, the newest being Artifact of Prestige (Alloyed Collective, November 2025). Void items corrupt specific vanilla items rather than existing as standalone entries, and Alloyed Collective alone added 18 new named items across multiple tiers.

What are the item tiers in Risk of Rain 2? (quick answer)

Nine core categories, confirmed via the game's own wiki: Common (White), Uncommon (Green), Legendary (Red), Boss (Yellow), Lunar (Blue), Void (Purple), Equipment (Orange, active items), Lunar Equipment (Blue), and the often-overlooked Elite Equipment, items that sit in the equipment slot but apply constantly instead of being triggered on a cooldown. The Alloyed Collective DLC added a tenth category, Meal Items, tied to a new item-combining mechanic exclusive to that expansion.

Key takeaways

• 9 core item tiers, including the often-missed Elite Equipment slot, plus a 10th DLC-exclusive Meal Item category
• 20 confirmed artifacts total, newest is Artifact of Prestige (Alloyed Collective, Nov 2025)
• Void items corrupt specific vanilla items rather than existing independently
• Alloyed Collective added 18 new named items across Equipment, Lunar, Boss, White, Green, and Red tiers
• Exact per-tier item counts for Legendary, Boss, Lunar, and Void weren't reliably confirmed and shouldn't be quoted as fixed numbers

The core tiers, with real examples

Common (White) items are the most frequently dropped tier, individually weak but designed to stack. Confirmed examples: Soldier's Syringe, Tougher Times, Monster Tooth, Lens-Maker's Glasses, Paul's Goat Hoof, Crowbar.

Uncommon (Green) items are a step up in individual power. Confirmed examples: AtG Missile Mk. 1, Will-o'-the-wisp, Hopoo Feather, Ukulele, Predatory Instincts, Red Whip.

Legendary (Red) items are the rarest standard drops and tend to define a build on their own. Confirmed examples: Brilliant Behemoth, Ceremonial Dagger, Frost Relic, Happiest Mask, H3AD-5T v2, Alien Head, N'kuhana's Opinion.

Boss (Yellow) items drop specifically from boss monsters. Confirmed examples: Titanic Knurl, Queen's Gland, Halcyon Seed, Pearl, Genesis Loop.

A support drone, one of several interactable ally units scattered across stages that can drop or provide items outside the standard chest loop.

Lunar items and Lunar Equipment are purchased with Lunar Coins rather than found through normal drops, and nearly all of them carry a genuine drawback alongside their benefit, which is why the game keeps them in a separate category instead of folding them into White, Green, or Red. Confirmed examples: Shaped Glass, Brittle Crown, Transcendence, Corpsebloom, Gesture of the Drowned.

Void items, added by the Survivors of the Void DLC, work differently from every other tier: each one corrupts a specific existing vanilla item rather than existing as an independent drop. Confirmed pairs: Encrusted Key corrupts Rusted Key, Lost Seer's Lenses corrupts Lens-Maker's Glasses, Needletick corrupts Tri-Tip Dagger, Safer Spaces corrupts Tougher Times, Weeping Fungus corrupts Bustling Fungus.

Elite Equipment is a smaller, easy-to-miss ninth category: the wiki's own equipment page counts 30 standard Equipment, 4 Lunar Equipment, and 10 Elite Equipment (44 total active items). Unlike the other two equipment groups, Elite Equipment behaves more like a passive item once it's in that slot: its effect is present at all times rather than something you activate on a cooldown. We're not naming the individual Elite Equipment items here since the exact list wasn't reliably confirmed during research; check the wiki directly if you need specific names.

We're deliberately not quoting a specific total item count per tier here. Exact per-tier counts for Legendary, Boss, Lunar, and Void weren't returned reliably during research, and this project has a standing rule against stating a specific-sounding number that can't be traced to a source. If you need an exact count for a specific tier, check the game's own wiki directly rather than trusting a number repeated secondhand.

GODEEPER: Item priorities look different depending on which survivor you're running, since some kits lean much harder on specific stat lines than others. Risk of Rain 2 Survivors Guide: All 18 Characters Ranked →

What actually matters for a new player's first few runs

New players tend to overvalue Legendary drops and undervalue stacking Common items, which is backwards for how the game's scaling actually works. A single Legendary item is powerful, but ten stacked Common items compound across a run in a way one rare drop usually can't match early on. The general advice repeated across the community and the wiki's own item pages holds up: prioritize picking up everything on early stages rather than being selective, since item scarcity is a bigger problem than item quality in the first ten minutes of a run. Selectiveness becomes more useful once a run is already going well and specific survivability or damage gaps need patching.

Equipment items deserve separate attention from the passive tiers because they're activated manually on a cooldown rather than applying automatically. A common early mistake is picking up an Equipment item and forgetting it exists for the rest of the run. Checking what's currently equipped after every stage transition is a small habit that meaningfully changes how much value a run gets out of that item slot.

Alloyed Collective's item additions

The November 2025 DLC added 18 new items by name, confirmed directly in the official patch notes: Deus Ex Machina (Equipment), Neutronium Weight (Lunar), Faulty Conductor and Functional Coupler (Boss), Eclipse Lite and Hiker's Boots (White), Box of Dynamite, Collectors Compulsion, Faraday Spurs, and Kinetic Dampener (Green), Substandard Duplicator, Orphaned Core, and Networked Suffering (Red), plus 5 Meal Items: Seared Steak, Quick Fix, Hearty Stew, Sauteed Worms, and Ultimate Meal.

Meal Items are genuinely new territory for the item system: they're tied to a new "Wandering CHEF Item Combining" mechanic introduced in the same DLC, rather than dropping through the normal chest-and-loot-pool loop every other tier uses. If a build guide mentions Meal Items, it's specifically referencing Alloyed Collective content, not something available in the base game or the earlier two DLCs.

Interactable structures like this one sit alongside the item pool as part of a run's moment-to-moment decision-making.

All 20 artifacts

Artifacts are run-modifying rules unlocked separately from items, toggled on before a run starts rather than picked up during one. The confirmed full list of 20, per the game's own wiki: Chaos, Command, Death, Delusion, Devotion, Dissonance, Enigma, Evolution, Frailty, Glass, Honor, Kin, Metamorphosis, Prestige, Rebirth, Sacrifice, Soul, Spite, Swarms, and Vengeance.

Artifact of Prestige is the newest of the 20, added by Alloyed Collective in November 2025 and confirmed both by the official patch notes and the wiki's own artifact page. If you're looking at an older artifact list from before late 2025 and it only shows 19, Prestige is the one that's missing.

A handful of the more commonly discussed artifacts, for context: Glass trades a large chunk of your max health for a large damage boost, a classic high-risk, high-reward toggle. Command lets you choose exactly which item you get from every drop instead of it being random, useful for testing specific builds without relying on RNG. Sacrifice removes chests entirely in favor of guaranteed item drops from every enemy kill, changing the game's whole pacing. Exact numeric effect values (the specific percentages Glass or similar artifacts use) should be double-checked against the wiki directly before quoting them precisely, since those weren't confirmed with full confidence during this guide's research.

Artifacts need to be unlocked individually before they can be toggled, and most of the unlock conditions involve completing a specific in-run challenge tied to that artifact's theme rather than a flat playtime or currency cost. That's part of why a returning player who last checked in years ago might see artifacts they don't recognize on the selection screen: newer artifacts like Prestige simply weren't there to unlock yet.

GODEEPER: Boss-tier items specifically drop from the boss roster covered in detail elsewhere on this site, including the two new Teleporter Bosses Alloyed Collective added. Risk of Rain 2 Bosses and Alloyed Collective DLC Guide →

Drones like this one are part of the game's growing roster of ally units, several of which were expanded in the Alloyed Collective DLC.

Frequently Asked Questions

How many item tiers are in Risk of Rain 2? Nine categories: Common (White), Uncommon (Green), Legendary (Red), Boss (Yellow), Lunar (Blue), Void (Purple), Equipment (Orange), Lunar Equipment (Blue), and Elite Equipment (a smaller always-on category). Alloyed Collective added a tenth, Meal Items, a new category exclusive to that DLC.

How many artifacts are in Risk of Rain 2? 20, confirmed directly by the game's own wiki. The most recent addition, Artifact of Prestige, was added by the Alloyed Collective DLC in November 2025.

What are Void items in Risk of Rain 2? Corrupted variants of specific vanilla items, added by the Survivors of the Void DLC. Each Void item replaces one specific base-game item rather than existing independently, for example Encrusted Key corrupts Rusted Key and Needletick corrupts Tri-Tip Dagger.

What new items did Alloyed Collective add? 18 new items confirmed by name in the official patch notes, spanning Equipment, Lunar, Boss, White, Green, and Red tiers, plus 5 Meal Items unique to a new Wandering CHEF item-combining mechanic.

What is the Artifact of Prestige? The newest artifact, added by the Alloyed Collective DLC in November 2025. It's confirmed real via both the game's official patch notes and its own wiki page.

Are Lunar items good or risky in Risk of Rain 2? Both. Lunar items are purchased with Lunar Coins rather than found in normal item drops, and most carry a real drawback alongside their benefit, which is why they're kept in a separate category from standard tiered items rather than folded into White, Green, or Red.

Related Reading

• Risk of Rain 2 Complete Guide: the hub for every Risk of Rain 2 guide on this site.
• Risk of Rain 2 Survivors Guide: All 18 Characters Ranked: the full playable roster, including who benefits most from specific item builds.
• Risk of Rain 2 Bosses and Alloyed Collective DLC Guide: where Boss-tier items actually drop from, and what else the newest DLC changed.

References

• Risk of Rain 2 on Steam: official store page and current review data.
• Risk of Rain 2 official wiki: Items: item tier structure and names.
• Risk of Rain 2 official wiki: Artifacts: the full 20-artifact list.