Independent studio Hopoo Games, the developers behind Risk of Rain, announced that many of its developers are going to work with Valve directly, which resulted in the smaller studio halting production of its upcoming game.
Hopoo Games has worked with Valve in the past while also developing its own games. These include the Risk of Rain games and Deadbolt. The studio was working on a third game, which was known as Snail, though it was never announced officially.
After thanking fans and team members, Hopoo Games explained that it would be “sleep[ing] tight” in the meantime. Considering Snail was never announced and very little was known about it, this is mostly good news. Even more so for the developers.
Risk of Rain fans don’t need to worry about the developers moving to Valve. Gearbox Publishing had already bought the rights to Risk of Rain years ago. The developers’ choice to move to Valve won’t affect the IP at all.
Hopoo Games prides itself on making games that define genres and that its developers want to play. Between both Deadbolt and the Risk of Rain games, it’s clear that the team did just that. Risk of Rain 2 was nominated at game shows on its release. Plus, Deadbolt has a perfect 10/10 rating on Steam despite its age.
With Hopoo’s community supporting them, the talent now at Valve is no doubt adding a lot to the much larger studio.
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