Hopoo Games co-founders Paul Morse and Duncan Drummond have left the Risk of Rain developer to join Valve.
The study he broke the news in a post on X and revealed “many other talented [team] members” have also been hired by Valve. That group will “work on game development” at the Half-Life maker and Steam owner.
It's unclear how many Hopoo employees have joined Valve in total, but it's enough to convince the studio to cancel its upcoming project codenamed “Snail” and take a long nap.
“It’s been an exciting and transformative 12 years. We feel fortunate for the opportunities we’ve had and deeply appreciate both our team and the fans who have supported us and our games,” the studio wrote.
“We love making games and will continue to do so for many years to come. We are thrilled to be working side by side with the talented people at Valve. But for now, sleep well, Hopoo Games.”
Hopoo was founded in 2012 and has been successful with Bolt AND Risk of rainwith the latter eventually becoming a bona fide franchise that spawned a sequel and a remaster. The studio sold the Risk of Rain intellectual property to Gearbox Entertainment in 2022 for an undisclosed amount.
Valve is currently developing a MOBA shooter called Stall That attracted nearly 90,000 concurrent players despite it being only accessible via closed beta. The project was supposed to be somewhat secret despite being incredibly easy to access, but Valve has formally presented the title after interest from players and the press increased.
It is unclear what projects Hopoo employees will be working on at the company. Game Developer has reached out to Hopoo for more information.