Risk of Rain 2 dev details post-launch content plans, including substantial paid expansions
"To engage players back" into the game.
Last month saw Hopoo Games' co-operative rogue-like shooter sequel Risk of Rain 2 get its full version 1.0 release on Steam following 18 months in early access, and, now, with that out the way and a full console release due this autumn, the developer has detailed its initial post-launch content plans, including possible paid expansions.
Risk of Rain 2 entered Steam early access back in March last year, and made its way to to Xbox One, PS4, and Switch in the months that followed. It's proven to be a hit for Hopoo Games - version 1.0 drew 70,000 concurrent Steam players - and the developer has now put its mind to sustaining the game's momentum post-launch, starting with a free content update for all.
Offering something of an early access post-mortem in a new blog post, Hopoo explained that while its development roadmap helped it stay on track, it did mean "ideas that were cool but challenging had to be cut to hit release dates". As such, certain features - including the Grandparent (a unique boss for Sky Meadows) and lore entries - didn't make launch.
Hopoo says that, post-release, it plans to adopt a strategy of "sustainable, creative development" for Risk of Rain 2, beginning with one final, free content update for players on all platforms. Hopoo says there's no timeline or release date for the update yet, but that its goal "is to complete internal content we had to cut, and to do another pass on feedback from players".
Once this free update is complete, Hopoo intends to move to a model of paid expansions for Risk of Rain 2, with the aim being to release either one or two a year. These, it says, will be comparable with multiple content updates in terms or size, and will each likely follow a particular theme, such as a Void or Imp expansion.
Hopoo says the paid expansion model will "help pay for the new developers we're going to hire, and help pay for porting costs to consoles", and will, it hopes, "be much more likely to engage players back into RoR2".
"The reality," it explains, "is that RoR2 is competing with every other game on the planet for your time and focus - and as the game ages, and new cool games come out, we want to make sure that if we're compelling you to come back to RoR2, it's with something more exciting than 1 new survivor and 8 new items."
"We think Expansions will be a good way to continue on-going development on RoR2," Hopoo concludes, "Please let us know if this sounds exciting!". Quality of life, bug fixes, and balance changes, it stresses, will be continue to arrive as free updates.