After “nearly a decade” of work, devs of brilliant roguelike FPS Roboquest call it quits: “It was never meant to be what is called today a ‘game as service'”
The studio behind brilliant roguelike FPS Roboquest is finally waving goodbye to its breakout hit after almost a decade of work because “it was never meant to be what is called today a ‘game as service.'”
Roboquest has been beloved ever since becoming a breakout Steam early access hit in 2020 and its reputation only grew after its 1.0 launch in 2023, not to mention all the continual updates that have kept it chugging since. But there won’t be anymore updates to the game for the foreseeable future, according to developer RyseUp Studios.
“We’ve been quite silent for the past months, not knowing exactly what to say, how to say it or when to say it,” the team wrote in a new, heartfelt dev blog. “But today’s the day. 2025 marks nearly a decade working on Roboquest, and it also marks the end of the journey for the game. We know many of you would have loved to see more updates, more content, more Roboquest. But that isn’t something we are able to deliver.”
“Spending as much time on the same project takes a toll, and no matter how passionate we have been about Roboquest, it is finally time for us to look at new horizons,” it continued. “When we first designed Roboquest, it was never meant to be what is called today ‘a game as service’. Pumping out updates just for the sake of ‘maintaining the game’ was never on the cards. Yet, we tried to scrap whatever we thought could constitute ‘good additions’ to the game (some with more success than others).”
RyseUp says it stretched the game as far as it would go after 1.0 with new content and continual updates, but it “can’t stretch any more” as the game was initially designed to be around 25 to 50 hours, so “there’s no way” the studio can add meaningful “content for players with over 1000 hours of gameplay” logged.
“The passion that burnt bright for so many years started to falter. Fatigue kicked in, and we realized we really needed to turn the page,” the blog adds. “We did everything we ever wanted (and even more) with Roboquest and we thank you for being here with us during all this time.We’re not planning any more updates on Roboquest.”
RyseUp assures fans that the cross-platform multiplayer will stay online.
For now, most of the team are already working on a brand new project. While the developer doesn’t have anything solid to announce right now, the blog explains that the new game “re-ignited the passion and the flame that allowed us to craft Roboquest.” Once the VR version comes out at the end of the year and the PlayStation port drops on May 27, the rest of the team will also hop aboard the new project.
“So yeah, that’s it. After over 50 billion badbots destroyed, we’re finally turning the page.”
Here are some of the other best roguelikes to play if you’ve already dipped into Roboquest.
