It's not exactly a great time for roguelike third-person shooter Risk of Rain 2, amid a chaotic launch for Gearbox's new Seekers of the Storm DLC that's brought significant issues to the entire game. Amid this, however, it's been announced that many of its original developers have moved to Valve.
The original studio, Hopoo Games, sold the rights to Risk of Rain to Borderlands studio Gearbox in 2022, so Hopoo's devs haven't been involved with the roguelike for a while now. Now though, the studio's co-founders – Duncan Drummond and Paul Morse – as well as "many other talented members," have moved on to completely new horizons.
"Today, we have an exciting update: Duncan and Paul, alongside many other talented members at Hopoo Games, will now be working on game development directly at [Valve]!" an announcement posted on the Hopoo Games Twitter page reads. "We're incredibly grateful to Valve for their partnerships in the last decade, and are excited to continue working on their awesome titles."
This move does come with some unfortunate news, as Hopoo confirms that it's "stopping production on our unannounced game, 'Snail.'" No details have been given on what Snail was – the name is certainly intriguing, but the lack of information means we may never know if it was some kind of mollusc roguelike (I'd like to think so, though).
"It's been an exciting and transformative 12 years. We feel lucky for the opportunities we've had, and deeply appreciate both our team and fans that have supported us and our games," Hopoo Games continues. "We love making games – and will continue to do so, for years to come. We're excited to be working side-by-side with the talented people at Valve. But for now – sleep tight, Hopoo Games."
For now, it's not clear what Valve's new recruits will be working on – we'll just have to watch this space.
For more games like Risk of Rain 2, be sure to check out our list of the best roguelike games.
