Hopoo Games joins Valve and halts development of its new game codenamed Snail
Risk of Rain developer Hopoo Games has suddenly announced a deal with Valve. As a result, the studio will cease to exist as a standalone company.
Risk of Rain
Hopoo Games shared the news on X, saying that it will be part of Valve from now on. Co-founders Duncan Drum and Paul Morse will join the Steam owner along with other team members.
The financial terms and other details of the deal remain undisclosed. One thing is clear: the studio will merge into Valve and stop the production on its unannounced project codenamed Snail. “Sleep tight, Hopoo Games,” the message reads.
Hopoo employees will join other game development projects within Valve. “We’re incredibly grateful to Valve for their partnerships in the last decade, and are excited to continue working on their awesome titles,” the studio wrote, adding that “we love making games – and will continue to do so, for years to come.”
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.
— Hopoo Games (@hopoogames) September 3, 2024
The case with Hopoo Games is similar to what happened with Campo Santo, the developer of the 2016 indie hit Firewatch. In 2018, Valve acquired the studio, which then halted the development of its next title, In the Valley of Gods. The Campo Santo team has since worked on games like Half-Life: Alyx and Dota Underlords.
Founded in 2012, Hopoo Games first came to the spotlight with its 2013 action roguelike Risk of Rain, which also raised over $30k on Kickstarter. In 2019, the team launched a sequel, which sold over 1 million copies within the first month of its Early Access launch and crossed the 4 million mark by 2021. The Risk of Rain IP was eventually acquired by Gearbox Software in 2022.
It is unclear what Hoppo Games developers will exactly do at Valve, whether they will join existing projects like Deadlock, CS2, Dota 2, and Team Fortress 2, or make new games based on one of the company’s IPs.
