Risk of Rain 2 creators comment on Gearbox's first DLC without them: 'It's great to see new content for the game, but it's hard to see growing pains of the new team in real time'

(Image credit: Hopoo Games)

It hasn't been a good week to be a Risk of Rain fan. Gearbox released Seekers of the Storm, Risk of Rain 2's first DLC since the publisher bought the series from original developers Hopoo Games, and it's currently sitting at just 21% positive reviews on Steam.

More than the content of the DLC, the backlash has been in response to a regional pricing quirk that doubled its price in some markets, as well as PC performance issues and bugs from an accompanying update⁠—so everyone, not just DLC purchasers, were negatively affected. Now some of the game's original developers have commented on the release.

"We still believe that Gearbox is heading in the right direction, and that they have every intention of fixing issues & listening to feedback. I know the people on the GBX team—and they care deeply about Risk of Rain. Definitely a hard situation for everyone involved."

Speaking to PCGamesN, Risk of Rain 2 programmer Jeffrey Hunt offered a similar perspective, sympathetic to the developers working on the game at Gearbox. "I think that the team working on the DLC did the best they could with what time and resources they were given, which isn't a stretch to guess wasn't enough," Hunt said. "I remember the team at Gearbox we worked with on the Survivors of the Void DLC was doing really well, particularly on the new stages."

Ted has been thinking about PC games and bothering anyone who would listen with his thoughts on them ever since he booted up his sister's copy of Neverwinter Nights on the family computer. He is obsessed with all things CRPG and CRPG-adjacent, but has also covered esports, modding, and rare game collecting. When he's not playing or writing about games, you can find Ted lifting weights on his back porch. You can follow Ted on Bluesky.