Because we’re still in the shadow of theBorderlandsmovie’s tremendous flop, a recent controversy seems to be kicking Gearbox Software when they’re already down.
But, when it rains, it pours, asthe recent $15Risk Of Rain 2Seekers Of The Storm DLC has landed as a critical failure.
Gearbox Softwareacquired the Risk Of Rain franchisein 2022, bringing the indie rogue-lite game, beloved by many, into its catalog of successful franchises.
However, fans were afraid because it took the franchise away from the hands of Hopoo Games, and this also meant new content was soon on its way without them at the helm.
Hollow Knight: Silksong ‘Beta Testing’ Update Seems Like False Alarm
More disappointing news for the fans of this long-awaited sequel
It seems this skepticism was well-placed. As Gearbox’s new DLC is widely regarded as insufficient and incomplete, attracting review bombs from disappointed fans worldwide.
Before the new DLC and updates were even dropped, there was apricing issue, with the game costing too much in some regions compared to others. Yet, this was only a tiny taste of the problems to come.
The Key Issue And Fan Reception
The main issues plaguing this update are similar to something we’ve seen recently withFallout 4: a next-gen update that completely changes a game’s content.
WhenFallout 4 transitioned to a next-gen update, fans realized that their installed mods for the game were no longer working.
In addition to this issue,the new Risk Of Rain 2 update has added subsequent bugs that make it a much worse experience, whether you’re playing content from the latest DLC or the base game.
One of the technical problems among many in theRisk Of Rain 2: Seekers Of The Stormupdate is that the game now ties aspects like physics to the FPS.
Gearbox employees and fans on Discord have presented theshort-term solution of capping your FPS at 60, but that still doesn’t entirely remove the issues.
A depressing but somewhat sardonically humorous reaction to this whole debacle has been one of the originalco-creators of Risk Of Rain 2 grievingover their “poor baby” through Discord messages:
Fans have done the standard routine andgone to Steam to review-bomb the DLC, sharing their disappointed opinions. Some have even gone on to give negative reviews to the original release on Steam.
While we hope that Gearbox can right these wrongs, judging from their recent output, I wouldn’t hold your breath.
Risk Of Rain 2 Is The Perfect Introduction To Roguelikes
A roguelike I finally risked.
Is The Embracer Group To Blame?
The timeline starts in 2021, whenEmbracer Group purchases Gearbox. In 2022,Gearbox buys Risk Of Rain, and recently, in 2024, Embracer sellsGearbox to Take-Two Interactive,leading to a surge of internal layoffs.
Although, once again, the issues with the DLC rely on coding issues and performance, it’s not hard to think that leaders and workers’main priority within a company constantly being bought and sold is merely arriving at a product to prove their worth.
This leads to an environment where slip-ups like these are possibly more expected than we’d like to think.
Speculation about the industry aside, we want to point out that Gearbox developers are actively investigating the situation.Any bug reports you wish to make are accepted throughDiscord, and from the looks of it, they’re at least trying their best to fix this mess.
The critical fan reception has been wholly deserved; there’s nothing else to do but hopeRisk Of Rain 2returns to its pre-update status.
