Crowbar

The Crowbar item is a reference to the Half Life series created by Valve, in which the main character "Gordon Freeman" uses a Crowbar very similar to the one in Risk of Rain as his melee weapon. The text "Until the 3rd version arrives" is a dig at the long production time of the half life series and Valve's seeming dislike of the number 3, going as far as making Half Life 1, 2 and Half Life 2 episodes 1 and 2. Because of this, Half Life 3 has become a well known point of humour on the internet joking about how it will never come out.