New games regularly appear on Steam that suddenly become big hits, surprising even the developers. One of these games is the horror game R.E.P.O., which is set to release in 2025. What started as a game that the developers wanted to release quickly has become a title so successful that they now require more time for the first major update.
What is R.E.P.O? R.E.P.O. can best be compared to Lethal Company. In cooperative mode with up to 6 players, you must retrieve and transport items across various missions. You will visit abandoned and haunted places. The popular Proximity Chat feature is also included, meaning you can only hear your teammates if they are nearby.
The special thing about R.E.P.O. is that everything is physics-based. This not only affects your exploration and the transport of items but also the behavior of the monsters that you may encounter.
Although the developers of R.E.P.O., semiwork, quickly finished the game due to lack of funding, it became one of the biggest hits on Steam in 2025. This was so surprising that they need more time for the first major update.
It takes longer because we have to deal with boring stuff
in the background
What do the developers say about the first major update? In a new YouTube video, the developers answered some community questions. At the beginning of the video, they jokingly respond to the question of how often they sleep. They reply, We slept once and have been awake since.
At the end of the video, they are asked when the first update for the game will be released. He first explains that they know the community wants the update and that they see it and are working hard on it. However, it will likely take a while longer.
The first update will take a bit longer because the great success of R.E.P.O. has come as a surprise to us. There are many administrative and boring things we need to handle behind the scenes, and of course, we are working on the game to ensure everything is stable and ready for release.
R.E.P.O. developers about the first major update (via YouTube)
As the developers mentioned in a previous YouTube video, it takes longer because they still have much to learn and they want to do that in the right way. They explain that future updates will likely come out faster because they will have learned more by then.
Smaller teams and developers often do not expect their games to hit as hard on Steam as R.E.P.O. did in 2025. Often they do not have the resources to be prepared for such a large player base immediately. Even the developer of Balatro was surprised in 2024: He thought 10 people would play it and he would have to go back to normal work: Yet a million buy his first game on Steam
