Voidling

Lore & Background

In the Risk of Rain universe, the Void is a place of silence and absence, a dimension that bleeds into the material world through rifts and corrupted zones. The Voidling is one of the beings that seeps through those cracks—not a survivor, not a hero, but something that has always existed in the dark between stars and now finds itself tangled in the chaos of a planet overrun by alien fauna. It does not speak in words players can parse; its presence is felt as a drop in temperature, a flicker of the void where light should be.

The Voidling's relationship to the other characters is one of uneasy coexistence. It joins the fight not out of camaraderie but out of a hunger that void-damage feeds. Every enemy it strikes is marked, slowly consumed by the same entropy that birthed it. Players who choose the Voidling are essentially playing as a force of unmaking, a walking reminder that the world they are trying to survive is already half-swallowed by something older and colder.

In Risk of Rain 2, the Voidling retains its core identity while gaining more mechanical depth: a dedicated dash that lets it reposition through enemy swarms, a void passive that latches onto targets like a slow poison, and a dual-weapon kit that encourages a rhythm of closing in, striking, blinking away, and striking again. It is the character for players who want to feel less like a soldier and more like a wound in reality.

In Their Own Story

The forest was quiet in the way that only a dying place is quiet. The Voidling stood at the edge of a clearing where three of the larger beasts had already fallen, their carcasses still smoking with the purple-black residue of void damage. It did not breathe. It did not need to. The air around it tasted of ozone and old static, the kind you get before a storm that never breaks.

A growl came from the treeline. The Voidling tilted its head—an almost human gesture, almost. Then it blinked, and for a half-second it was simply *not there*, and in the next half-second it was behind the growl, blade already swinging. The creature shrieked. The void ate into it, slow and patient, a tickle that would become a feast.

Somewhere far below, in a bunker that was no longer a bunker, a survivor watched the feed and whispered, "It's beautiful. God help me, it's beautiful."

The Voidling did not hear. The Voidling did not care. The Voidling was hungry, and the forest was full.

Reader's Guide

The Voidling operates on a core loop of approach, strike, reposition, repeat. Its two weapons—the Void Blade (melee) and the Void Gun (ranged)—cover both close and mid range. The Void Blade swings in a wide arc in front of the character, hitting multiple enemies in a cone. The Void Gun fires a projectile that travels in a straight line, useful for picking off stragglers or hitting enemies at range before committing to a melee exchange.

The key ability is the Dash: a short-range teleport in the direction you are moving. It has a brief cooldown and a very short duration, making it a repositioning tool rather than an escape. Use it to close the gap on a target, to slip behind a group of enemies, or to pop out of a dangerous melee range in one frame. It does not grant invulnerability, so timing matters.

The Void passive is the Voidling's signature: every enemy hit by any of its attacks gains a Void damage-over-time effect. This stacks and refreshes with each hit, meaning a sustained melee combo will apply a growing tick of void damage that persists even after the enemy is no longer in your immediate range. This passive scales with your level and any void-damage modifiers you pick up, making it a compounding source of damage in longer fights.

Strategically, the Voidling rewards aggressive, mobile play. You want to be in the middle of the fight, blinking in and out, keeping the Void DoT ticking on as many targets as possible. Its lower raw burst compared to some characters is offset by the persistent void damage, which shreds tanks and large groups over time. Pair it with items that increase attack speed or void damage to accelerate the DoT tick rate, and the Voidling becomes a relentless, self-sustaining engine of unmaking.

Did You Know?

• The Voidling appears in both Risk of Rain (2013) and Risk of Rain 2 (2020), making it one of the few characters to carry over between the two games with a reworked kit.
• The Void damage-over-time passive applies to enemies hit by both the Void Blade and the Void Gun, meaning even a purely ranged playstyle still benefits from the DoT.
• The Voidling's Dash is a true teleport rather than a speed boost, so it can cross small gaps or slip through narrow openings that a running character could not.
• In the Risk of Rain universe, the Void is a recurring environmental and narrative element—corrupted zones, void rifts, and void-touched enemies all tie into the same lore thread the Voidling represents.