This year has seen a massive number of releases pushed back. Whether it be lack of funding and resources due to a drop in marketing as a result of the canceling of pretty much every convention or simple hits to production from the COVID-19 pandemic, it seems like no developer has been untouched.
Hopoo Games, the developers behind Risk of Rain and Risk of Rain 2 announced today that they’ll have to push back the full release of the second title. While the game has been in early access for quite some time, the developers have hit a few snags that made it harder to get the title where they wanted it.
However, it is worth mentioning that Hopoo Games is adamant that COVID-19 is not the reason for this delay.
“We’re incredibly lucky in that our business was mostly unaffected,” Hopoo stated in their announcement, linked below. “The timing has changed because we’re expanding the scope of the 1.0 Update.”
Hopoo states that they’ve “almost completed the entirety of Early Access without any date changes,” discussing their sturdy and solid development team. The delay comes as a result of the team expanding their goals rather than being impacted by the pandemic or any other outside source.
One feature they’re addressing is Quickplay, which they admit is “a bit of a mess,” according to fan feedback. They admit that part of this was exacerbated by the addition of Artifacts and that the feature is barebones due to its installation early on in the game’s lifespan.
As such, the team is targeting Quickplay directly for improvements, improving the feature with a built-in server browser and hosting to easily find a game. Furthermore, they’ll also make it so that players who host are able to (hopefully) find people with similar preferences to them.
“While we still don’t have host migration, the hope is that if everyone is playing in a lobby with settings they like, people won’t be quitting for ping, difficulty, or any other fixable reasons,” Hopoo states.
With the team adding in a server browser and improving Quickplay all around, it seems like the multiplayer is going to be improved drastically by the time 1.0 launches. While these are the only changes being discussed, there’s plenty more coming with the update.
Hopefully, as development continues, the developers won’t have any issues or further setbacks with the title. Until then, no one should be too upset with the title being delayed to make it significantly better at launch.
