Nearly a month after Threat of Rain studio Hopoo Video games introduced that it was becoming a member of Valve and halting work on an unannounced recreation, the studio’s titular cofounder, Duncan “Hopoo” Drummond has revealed that he’s particularly engaged on Impasse, Valve’s previously open secret MOBA-shooter.
The information was shared to X, “The The whole lot App” by Impasse Intel, a dependable supply of reports on the sport and its beta take a look at Discord. Drummond, posting underneath his longtime deal with Hopoo, shared a short introductory message to the server. “I will be round so no have to cram all of it now,” Drummond wrote. “Any fixes I do right now probably will not make it to right now’s construct, simply to set expectations.”
Threat of Rain creator Hopoo has joined the Impasse group pic.twitter.com/XnY4R3JNXlSeptember 27, 2024
Drummond and Paul Morse co-created the favored Threat of Rain collection of roguelikes, with possession of the collection and stewardship of Threat of Rain 2 lately passing to the sport’s writer, Gearbox, to combined outcomes. On September 3, Hopoo Video games introduced that a lot of the group had joined Valve, together with Drummond and Morse, with the studio going darkish and improvement halting on an unannounced recreation codenamed “Snail.”
It is unknown at this level if Morse and the remainder of Hopoo are additionally engaged on Impasse, or in the event that they’re taking up different initiatives on the famously opaque developer. Courtroom paperwork present that Valve consisted of 336 workers in 2021, with greater than half of them (181) centered on energetic recreation improvement. Counter-Strike 2 and Impasse are essentially the most actively-supported of the studio’s video games nowadays, however it’s a must to think about the group behind 2020’s single participant Half-Life: Alyx is engaged on one thing else—that’s if it is not already DOA, removed from an impossibility given the studio’s historical past.
As PCG employees author Harvey Randall identified when Hopoo first went public with the information, it is exhausting to not see the parallels with Firewatch creator Campo Santo, which was employed on by Valve in 2018. Campo Santo’s anticipated follow-up recreation, Within the Valley of the Gods, appears to be like to be on indefinite maintain, whereas at the least a few of these builders wound up engaged on Half-Life: Alyx. A part of me mourns the lack of distinctive, profitable unbiased studios like Hopoo or Campo Santo, the promise of extra video games from them overtaken by the identical imprecise hope for extra output from the notorious “when it is completed (it would by no means be completed)” -loving Valve we have had since 2007.
On the identical time, Hopoo’s demonstrated experience with third particular person shooters and itemized development from Threat of Rain are an ideal match for Impasse, just like how Campo Santo’s affinity for first particular person exploration and storytelling little question helped make Half-Life: Alyx into an important recreation. On the finish of the day, in case you acquired a job provide to work at Valve, would not you’re taking it?
