Early Access is a difficult proposition since many gamers have been disappointed by titles that never make it out of that phase, but Hopoo Games has beaten the odds and produced Risk of Rain 2, an Early Access title many gamers praise. More importantly, the studio recently unveiled a roadmap that will lead to new content updates and Risk of Rain 2’s eventual full release.
According to a press release, Hopoo Games plans to provide five major content updates. These updates will add features such as new survivors, bosses, stages, and items, while two updates in particular will overhaul the skills and artifacts systems. And yes, some of the upcoming survivors will be returning faces from the original Risk of Rain. However, we don’t know which characters, items, or bosses will find their way into Risk of Rain 2, let alone how Hopoo Games plans to change skills and artifacts.
The first update will land in June, and the next three will release during the summer, fall, and winter. The fifth and final update is scheduled for spring of 2020 and will ring in Risk of Rain 2’s official launch. Hopoo Games is expecting Early Access to last around 12 months, so we should probably expect an official release in late April/early May at the earliest.
In addition to new features, stages, characters, and enemies, Hopoo Games has three major goals for Early Access: build a community, provide consistent and meaningful content, and produce “a great feedback loop,” hence the roadmap reveal.
“It is really important for us to have transparency with our amazing early access community, ” explained Hopoo Games co-founder Paul Morse. “We are sharing this forecast so players know what to look forward to and what the team is working towards in making Risk of Rain 2 the best game of its kind. That’s only possible with the input and feedback we get from our players.”
Moreover, Hopoo Games plans to introduce some smaller (but no less important) changes along the way. These improvements include optimization, reworking certain levels, squashing save corruption bugs, and localization/support for French, German, Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, and Turkish players.
Risk of Rain 2 is currently available on Steam Early Access for $19.99. Once the game releases, the price will probably increase.
