The creators of Risk of Rain 2 comment on Gearbox’s first DLC without their participation: 'It is great to see new content, but it is hard to see the growing pains of a new team in real-time'

It's not been a great week for Risk of Rain fans. Gearbox released Seekers of the Storm as the first DLC for Risk of Rain 2 since the publisher purchased the series from the original developers Hopoo Games. It currently has just 21% positive Steam reviews.

The backlash was triggered by more than just the DLC content. It was a reaction to regional pricing anomalies that doubled the price of the DLC in some markets. Also, PC performance issues, bugs, and an accompanying update were all negatively impacted. Now, some of the original developers of the game have commented on its release.

Duncan Drummond, co-creator of Risk of Rain, wrote on August 30 about Seekers of the Storm in X's "The Everything App", expressing sympathy for the backlash as well as understanding the Gearbox development team.

Drummond wrote: "It's a bummer for the fans who lost functionality in the game they love." "It's also a bummer for the developers of GBX who are probably under a lot of stress and cannot really celebrate the launch of a new DLC.

"We still think that Gearbox is on the right track, and that they are listening to feedback & fixing issues. I know the GBX staff, and they are passionate about Risk of Rain. "Definitely a difficult situation for everyone involved."

Jeffrey Hunt, a programmer at Gearbox, spoke to PCGamesN and expressed a similar view. Hunt said, "I think the team that worked on the DLC did their best with the time and resources given to them, which it's not a stretch of the imagination to guess weren't enough." "I remember the Gearbox team we worked with for the Survivors of the Void DLC did really well, especially on the new stage."

Gearbox is currently working to address the biggest complaints players have about Seekers Of The Storm. In a dev diary posted on August 30, Gearbox stated that fixing bugs and performance problems in the PC version is the company's top priority. The list of issues Gearbox identified was extensive.