Former Risk of Rain developers join Valve for future projects

After releasing the phenomenal Risk of Rain Returns and letting Gearbox take control and development of Risk of Rain 2 – for better or for worse – Hopoo Games’ next project was a big mystery. Now, however, that mystery is being put on hold as studio heads take on roles at Valve.

More specifically, Valve is essentially subsuming a significant chunk of Hopoo Games. This includes Hopoo co-founders Duncan Drummond and Paul Morse, as well as a host of “many other talented members” of the development team. It is, perhaps, important to note that Hopoo’s statement outright states that the people joining Valve will be specifically working on “game development,” so logic dictates their work probably won’t have anything directly to do with Steam proper. It might have something to do with Half-Life 3, though. Right?

Hopoo Games developers leave the studio to start working at Valve

Naturally, now that a significant part of Hopoo Games’ workforce is leaving the studio to work for Valve, it would be extremely difficult to continue the production of any ongoing titles. To that end, the unannounced Snail project is no longer under active production, and will presumably be put on ice indefinitely. Virtually nothing was known about Snail up until now, short of the fact that Hopoo was working on it, so it’s not likely to have gotten too far down the production pipeline.

For fans of Hopoo Games’ output, there is some hope on the horizon. Notably, the studio’s current final statement on Twitter says that Hopoo “will continue to [make games] for years to come,” while implying that it’s only currently being put on ice for the foreseeable future. The obvious expectation is that, had this been a full-on closer, Hopoo Games’ statement would’ve been a bit more conclusive.

With Snail effectively cancelled and a huge part of the Hopoo crew now a part of Valve, it seems this is it for the beloved studio for the time being. As for what the future holds, that much nobody can say. It sure would be cool to have a Risk of Rain 2 type of game set in the Team Fortress universe though, right?

Speaking of which, this news does make Risk of Rain 2‘s current state all the sadder. Notably, Gearbox messed up the release of Risk of Rain 2‘s new DLC by pushing out a horribly underbaked update alongside it, breaking the base game along the way. Hopoo staff did say they “,” but it’s not a great look regardless. Here’s hoping Gearbox will be able to clear things up and bring ROR2 back into the positive limelight, so as to celebrate Hopoo’s legacy.