Not too long ago, Risk of Rain 2 finally left early access, launching with their 1.0 patch in August of this year – almost exactly a month from writing this, actually. The launch wasn’t the easiest one, and the developers saw some delays, but by the end of it all, the full version was released.

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Now, with that month of full release behind them, the developers have taken to their blog to discuss the future of the title. With so much to talk about, they dove right into upcoming content and changes that players should expect for the title.

One of the most interesting things to discuss for the future of Risk of Rain 2 is how the team intends to bring new content. While some may not like this particular change, the developers announced that they would be releasing new content in the form of paid DLC expansions that come with massive amounts of content.

“These expansions will most likely be themed… with new content built around that theme. Quality of life, bug fixes, and balance changes will still be free as patches.”

Before they begin releasing these paid DLCs – which will be the size of multiple Content Updates in one and only one or two a year – they intend to release one final free content update as a thank you to the players that helped build them.

The developers are also extremely transparent on why they intend to switch to this model. “We want to expand our team, and we want to see how far we can really take the game,” they state.

To that end, the extra income is needed. “The additional income will help pay for the new developers we’re going to hire, and help pay for porting costs to consoles.” Simply said – the company is growing, and to afford that growth, more income will have to be generated.

There hasn’t been any statement on the exact price that we should expect to see from these paid DLCs yet, and giving any sort of look into it would be difficult without heavy guesswork. Depending on how large and involved the expansions are, they may be quite pricy, especially given that there will only be one or two a year, supposedly.

The development team is confident that this method is going to be a solid path to continue their on-going development without hindering too much. While no one likes being told they’ll be paying for what was once free, those that supported the game through early access likely won’t be too upset to be continuing to do so.

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Either way, it’s unlikely that this method is going to change, so one can only hope that Hopoo puts an adequate amount of content into the new expansion packs. It could be quite some time since we see the first, so we’ll just need to hope for the best.