Risk of Rain 2: Seekers of the Storm - Chef Survivor Unlock Guide (2024)

Chef is one of the three new Survivors (AKA playable characters) added to Risk of Rain 2 with the release of their Seekers of the Storm DLC expansion. Seeker is another Survivor, but they're unlocked by default, while Chef involves a bit of work and preparation to obtain.

And, like a well-made meal, as long as you have the right ingredients and invest the right amount of time, you'll be able to unlock Chef relatively easily. With that in mind, let's break down exactly who this character is in Risk of Rain 2, how to reach them, and how to unlock them altogether.

Where to Unlock Chef

Reaching The Reformed Altar

So, to explain how to unlock Chef as simply as possible, you'll need to bring a Cautious Slug, one Bison Steak, and an Infusion into the Reformed Altar and place them all in front of the defunct Chef bot just below the statue's foot. To elaborate on this a bit more in-depth, to get to the Reformed Altar you'll first need to clear the Halcyon Shrine that typically spawns in the first level of a run. There are a lot of Shrines in Risk of Rain 2, so you'll know you've found the Halcyon Shrine when you stumble across a tall green crystal sticking out of the ground.

After praying to the shrine, you'll want to pour as much money into it as possible, with new enemies spawning at every major interval of the green crystal turning gold. You can stop this process early by interacting with the Shrine again, or if you let it fill until the Shrine is completely gold, the process will complete itself.

Regardless of whether you stop it early or not, when the process is finished a golden Halcyon Warrior will spawn. Take them out (be careful, they're tough) and a green portal should now spawn alongside the Halcyon Cache containing your hard-earned items. Go through the portal whenever you're ready, and you'll be spawned into the Reformed Altar.

Cooking Up Chef's Unlock Method

AKA, Actually Unlocking the Character

After reaching the Reformed Altar, you'll want to head towards the gigantic statue in the middle of the stage (or to be more precise, the bottom section of the statue extending out of the stage). Head to either foot of the statue, and you should see a small tunnel leading down into an equally small room. In this room, you'll see a stone console, a glass window, and a defunct Chef on the other side. If you look down at the console, you'll see that it has pictures of the Cautious Slug, Bison Steak, and Infusion items.

Bring each of these and place it into the console, and Chef will wake up and be promptly unlocked. The easiest way to do this is by starting a Drizzle run with the Command Artifact equipped, as you can easily get the necessary items in stage one or in the Reformed Altar using this method. However, if you don't want to rely on Artifacts to unlock Chef, it's worth mentioning that the placed items carry over between runs. So, if you only have the Cautious Slug in one run, still go and put it into the stone console, as it'll still be there when you return to Chef's room in a different run. Lastly, it's worth noting that this unlock method is individual, meaning you can't have a group of friends each bring one of the three mandatory items and have it work, the progress on these stone console is individually tied to each player.

Chef Survivor Overview

Abilities & General Playstyle

Now that you've unlocked Chef, let's take a brief look at what type of character he is. Chefs default Abilities include:

In general, Chef is a pretty close-range-type Survivor who relies on their passive for innate healing, their Glaze Special for CC, their Sear for status effects, their Primary for sustain damage, and their Utility for getting around the map.

A lot of players are calling the Chef weak based on first impressions, but we personally disagree. This character takes some work to get used to, just like the original Chef in the original Risk of Rain. Just make sure to space yourself properly, utilize the Glaze status in combination with Sear as much as possible, and utilize the Chef's Kiss passive to keep your health topped up.

Chef's Alternate Special & Unlock Method

Fans of the Original Chef Will Recognize This Ability

As far as alternate abilities go, Chef only has one, an alternate Special ability, called ' Yes, Chef!' that empowers his next ability in a variety of ways if you use them after using this Special. To unlock Yes Chef, you'll need to Glaze 10 of the Bison enemies and then finish them off with Sear, which can seem like a total pain. Thankfully, if you just keep starting and resetting new Drizzle runs with the Artifacts of Dissonance, Swarms, and Kin enabled, you've pretty much got it in the bag once you get a run where the Bison are the only enemy spawning (visible by looking for their picture underneath the Objective: dialog box in the top right). We took Chef into a run with Yes Chef equipped and here's what we found each of the modified abilities do:

• Dice: Instead of flinging one Cleaver, Chef flings 10+ flaming Cleavers, each in a different direction, outward with Chef at the center. The Cleavers are then called back to Chef, dealing more damage on the return trip.
• Sear: Instead of immediately unleashing a torrent of fire, the empowered Sear launches three blue balls of fire in the direction you're aiming, then goes into the torrent of fire, although it's now blue and appears to deal more damage than the standard variation.
• Roll: The main difference with the empowered Roll is that Chef now spins while charging, which seems to deal an additional burst of damage with any enemies it makes contact with during the Roll.

Risk of Rain 2

Systems

Franchise

risk of rain

Released

September 11, 2020

Developer(s)

Hopoo Games

Publisher(s)

Gearbox Publishing