Fly

Lore & Background

No one on the dropship ever bothered to catalogue the Fly. It was simply *there*, buzzing through the overgrown corridors of the Lush Wastes, skittering across the fungal ceilings of The Deep, drifting past the twisted trunks of The Woods. The Survivors' briefings listed it under 'ambient fauna' with a single line: *non-aggressive unless provoked.* That turned out to be generous. A Fly will swoop, will sting, will land on your visor and leave a faint, iridescent smear that no amount of wiping will remove.

What makes the Fly unsettling is not its strength but its *pervasiveness*. It is the smallest visible sign that the planet's ecosystem, however alien and broken, still churns with life. Where there are Flies, there are also the larger things that eat them, and the things that eat those. The Fly is the first rung on a ladder of predation that the Survivors are only beginning to map. In the quiet moments between firefights, a survivor might watch a Fly trace its lazy figure-eight above a patch of bioluminescent moss and feel, for a half-second, that the world is almost ordinary. Almost.

The Fly's biology, as far as the dropship's automated scanners can tell, is a compact, chitinous body with a pair of translucent wings that beat at a low, droning frequency. Its eyes are simple, dark, and unblinking. It does not seem to fear the Survivors, the heavy machinery, or the explosions that regularly reshape the terrain around it. It simply drifts, feeds on whatever organic matter is within reach, and continues its slow, purposeless circuit. In a way, the Fly is the planet's indifference made small and visible.

In Their Own Story

The rain had stopped, which meant the mud was still wet and the air still thick with the smell of turned earth. Commander stood at the edge of a shallow ravine in the Lush Wastes, watching the last of the swarm disperse into the grey afternoon. Three Flies remained, circling a half-buried crate of supply crates in a slow, drunken spiral. One of them broke off, drifted toward her, and landed on the tip of her rifle barrel. She did not swat it. She watched it flex its tiny legs, tilt its dark head, and then lift off again, resuming its lazy arc. Somewhere behind the treeline, something much larger was calling. The Fly did not care. The Fly never cared. And in that small, indifferent buzzing, Commander felt the first thread of the truth she would spend the rest of the run trying to unravel: the planet was not trying to kill them. It simply did not know they were there.

Reader's Guide

Name: Fly Role in the run: Basic aerial melee enemy; one of the most common early-game threats.

The Fly is a small, dark, insect-like creature that hovers in a slow, wavering sine-wave pattern. It does not chase aggressively on its own but will swoop down in a short, arcing lunge when a Survivor enters its range. Its hitbox is small, its health pool is modest, and its damage per hit is low by the game's standards. It is rarely a solo threat.

First appearance biome: Lush Wastes, though it appears in nearly every biome, including The Deep, The Woods, and The Mire.

Behavior and threat level: Individually, the Fly is a nuisance. In groups of four or more, it becomes a mild crowd-control problem, especially for Survivors with slow attack animations. It does not attack from behind or use projectiles; its entire toolkit is the swoop. It is not immune to knockback and will be interrupted by area-of-effect hits.

How to counter: A single melee swing or a basic ranged shot is usually enough to take one down. Survivors with AoE attacks (Commander's grenades, Hon's spin, or any shotgun-style weapon) can clear a cluster in one swing. Because the Fly is slow and predictable, positioning is the easiest counter—stay slightly above its flight path and let it pass, or time a single hit as it commits to its swoop. In later waves, Flies often appear alongside much larger enemies; prioritize the bigger threats and let the Flies die to collateral damage.

Lore connections: The Fly is the most basic 'ambient fauna' entry in the Survivors' field guides and is often the first enemy a new Survivor kills, making it a rite of passage of sorts.

Did You Know?

• The Fly appears in virtually every biome in Risk of Rain 2, making it one of the most universally encountered enemies in the entire game.
• Despite its small size, the Fly is a melee attacker; it swoops down in a short arc rather than firing projectiles.
• The Fly's slow, wavering flight pattern makes it one of the easiest enemies to dodge, which is part of why it is used as a baseline 'ambient' threat rather than a major combat encounter.
• In larger waves, Flies frequently appear alongside much more dangerous enemies, serving as background 'swarm' pressure while the Survivors focus on the real threats.