Risk of Rain 2 developer Hopoo Games has announced that it will be taking an indefinite hiatus and that many of its staff, including founders Paul Morse and Duncan Drummond, are joining Valve.
This news comes via a post on the official Hopoo Games X (formerly Twitter) account. In the post, Morse and Drummond say they'll be "working on game development directly" with Valve, although they don't state what they'll be working on specifically.
In a thread following the post, the two studio co-founders say they're "incredibly grateful" to Valve for the opportunity, but that this move does mean they'll be stopping work on their unannounced game, which is currently codenamed Snail.
Hopoo goes on to say that its staff "love making games", and that they will "continue to do so, for years to come". For now, however, it's "sleep tight, Hopoo Games", apparently.
It sounds as though this means Hopoo as an entity will cease to exist, at least for the time being, and that its employees will effectively be subsumed into Valve.
Perhaps we'll see the return of Hopoo Games some time in the future - that "for now" indicates that this might be a possibility - but for the time being, at least, you won't be seeing any new Hopoo Games releases.
Hopoo Games was originally founded back in 2012. The studio's first major release was the 2013 roguelike Risk of Rain, which was followed by 2016 stealth-action game Deadbolt and a followup to Risk of Rain, cannily named Risk of Rain 2, in 2020.
In November 2022, Hopoo Games handed over the rights to the Risk of Rain IP to Gearbox, ceding responsibility for the sequel's ongoing development to that studio as well.
Unfortunately, if the recently-released DLC Seekers of the Storm and its accompanying update are anything to go by, Gearbox wasn't exactly the best choice to look after Risk of Rain. Let's hope things improve for the franchise as time goes on.
