Creators of Risk of Rain 2 and many other Hopoo devs snapped up by Valve

[Chidubem]

The Risk of Rain series has been successful over the years. The first game in the sequel was developed by university students Paul Morse and Duncan Drummond, becoming an indie smash hit. The second game, Risk of Rain 2, was released in 2019 and also sold pretty well, gaining 500,000 players just in early access.

Later, in 2022, Gearbox gained ownership of the Risk of Rain IP, from Morse and Drummond's development studio, Hopoo games, and simply put, the reception to its latest expansion has not been going great since then.




The Hopoo studio's journey seems to be coming to a close, as "both the studio's creators" and "many other talented members of the team are going to start working on game development directly" at Valve now, as announced on Hopoo's Twitter page.

The thread continues to read: "We're incredibly grateful to Valve for their partnerships in the last decade, and are excited to continue working on their awesome titles." No pain, no gain, and that's definitely the case in this situation as they ended up sacrificing production in Hopoo studio, "this does mean that we are stopping production on our unannounced game, 'Snail'." The post read.

It all ends with a bittersweet send-off: "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."

Not all Hopoo fans support this idea, but considering the fact that Valve has a game in development, Deadlock, it's kinda a win for everyone, and there's actually no need to mourn for Hopoo's unannounced game, Snail, after all it was never announced, but at least Deadlock is.

While players of Hopoo games may have mixed feelings due to this news, we know that Valve is a video game giant that publishes top-notch AAA games, and Hopoo is by no means behind in the quality of their games either.

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[ViperXZ]

Four years? Wow, that’s late. I expected 2 years or so, I guess I overestimated the early dev version I played.

 

[Onasi]

…so does this mean Valve is actually going to start releasing games again or…?
And yes, Deadlock, I know, I know, but that’s Icefrogs pet project, so that getting to see the light of day is understandable.

Valve is a video game giant that publishes top-notch AAA games

Wait, what? Valve is a comparatively small studio compared to your usual suspects, actually. They are big because of Steam, sure, but that’s different. And Valve has published… uh, barely anything except for, like, GMod? In all other cases they have taken in the devs and released their games under Valve itself.

 

[ViperXZ]

…so does this mean Valve is actually going to start releasing games again or…?
And yes, Deadlock, I know, I know, but that’s Icefrogs pet project, so that getting to see the light of day is understandable.

Valve is a video game giant that publishes top-notch AAA games

Wait, what? Valve is a comparatively small studio compared to your usual suspects, actually. They are big because of Steam, sure, but that’s different. And Valve has published… uh, barely anything except for, like, GMod? In all other cases they have taken in the devs and released their games under Valve itself.

Valve isn’t small by any means and they have just published CS2, you’re having selective memory. Somehow it’s “in” to bash on Valve, but it’s entirely unneeded, boring and pointless.

 

[64K]

I think it's hard for gamers that have been around for a long time to let go of the Valve that they knew from the Half Life, Portal, Left 4 Dead games. I still feel like there's a huge gaping hole in Valve where great single player games once came from but those days are long gone unfortunately. Valve is hugely successful financially due to Steam and the multiplayer games and they don't see a good reason to change. Probably never will. Damn, where's my crying towel?

 

[demian_vi]

Valve isn’t small by any means and they have just published CS2, you’re having selective memory. Somehow it’s “in” to bash on Valve, but it’s entirely unneeded, boring and pointless.

They are small, as they have only 300 employees and more than a few work on steam and not games.
Cdproject has 1200 and Epic 4000 for comparison.

And as for AAA games they released cs2 10 years after dota2, so ita not like they release games frequently.

 

[Onasi]

Valve isn’t small by any means and they have just published CS2, you’re having selective memory.

Valve is a small company compared to usual AAA developers. This is undeniable.

And CS2 is a Valve developed game, not just published by Valve. “Published” usually implies acting as an external publisher for a game developed by some other studio. Saying that “Valve published CS2” is like saying “Blizzard published Diablo IV”. It is accurate in a sense, since this means that the game is self-published, but this isn’t usually what the “game published by X” terminology is used for. So no, I don’t have selective memory, cool it with instant ad hominems, I was taking umbrage with the phrasing in the news post.

 

[Bruno Vieira]

And there will never be a Risk of Rain 3

 

[Kohl Baas]

And there will never be a Risk of Rain 3

That depends on Gearbox if I read it correctly.