Hyperlight Breaker It is a hoverboard simulator. Technically, it's a third-person roguelite adventure set in a bright fantasy-cyberpunk universe, but after playing a 30-minute trailer, it's clear to me that Hyperlight Breaker It's about the hoverboard. The ferocious beasts, secret corners, and shiny weapons are secondary to the sensation of gliding over green hills and shallow waters on my bright blue slab, finding joy in narrowly avoiding enemy encounters.
Intentionally skipping battles was probably the opposite of what lead animator Chris Bullock wanted him to do during the first public hands-on opportunity with Hyperlight Breaker — but if that was the case, then he shouldn't have told me about the hoverboard.
Hyperlight Breaker is ready to launch in early access in steam this summer, complete with three-player online co-op. The developers of Heart Machine will let people play it for the first time at Day of the Devs: San Francisco Edition, which runs alongside GDC this week. I played a remote preview of the game at home, solo, while Bullock watched on Discord (and probably cringed a lot).
Automatic switch is an open world game with a central station called Cursed Outpost, a futuristic shopping center with shops, upgrade stations and NPCs. I briefly explored the outpost, but the majority of the game takes place in Overgrowth, an ever-changing landscape of biomes, and I focused on immersing myself in them. The biomes in Overgrowth are built with both handcrafted and procedurally generated elements so players never enter the same realm twice, and each has a boss to defeat called Corona. Despite my desire to float peacefully through the half-hour demo, I played with two loadouts, took out some slime hordes, and twice attempted to kill one of those Coronas: a huge bipedal wolf warrior with a golden sword named Dro.
In both of my battles with Dro, she began attacking instantly and with incredible force, swinging her sword wildly as she leapt in a giant arc across a temple and directly over my head. I dodged it and tried to fill her awe meter by launching basic attacks with my sword and firearm, but the wolf was relentless, especially compared to the basic enemies I easily dispatched around the biome.
Dro defeated me twice. At the end of each fight, I heard the siren song of the game drawing me in, making me believe that he could beat the big bad wolf next time, if he employed an updated strategy. Stopping was key in this fight, according to Bullock.
“On his first initial attack, you immediately tried to stop him,” Bullock said as I prepared to fight the boss again. “I love that you caught that right away; “That was the intention in that case.”
The parry had been an accident on my part, but I immediately noticed how effective it was, giving me half a second at the start of the match to step back and strategize. What I experienced with the stop was a fit of rage, Bullock explained. Some beasts in Hyperlight Breaker It glows red and then makes big moves that must be perfectly parried to negate damage, reverse a projectile, or stun the enemy. With a rage attack, a less than perfect parry will only mitigate some of the damage.
“That's definitely the goal of the design, to make combat clear, to know when you're doing something right,” Bullock said.
These moments of tactical clarity are exactly what makes a roguelike or roguelite addictive. I can see how to beat the boss; Now I just have to be good enough at the game to implement those moves before they kill me.
There is no dialogue in Hyperlight BreakerLike his predecessor, Hyperlight Wanderer. Homeless was an incredibly stylish 2D action RPG that came out in 2016 after a few years of crowdfunding and a lot of hype, and solidified Heart Machine's reputation as a stellar indie studio. Hyperlight Breaker It's technically a prequel to Homelessas it is set 15 years before the events of that game.
tramp cDesigner Teddy Dief founded Team OFK and released the musical visual novel. We are OFKwhile lead developer Alx Preston stuck with Heart Machine and released solar ash in 2021. Like Automatic switch, solar ash is set in the same general universe as Hyperlight Wandererbut it is a very different game and is not a direct sequel. solar ash is a third-person action platformer built around incredibly satisfying sliding mechanics, and its world is filled with alien environments, huge monsters, and vaguely menacing deities.
“Hyperlight It was a way to start, it was a way to be more rooted and build a team and understand, can I do this? Can I really create games? Preston told me in 2021, during the lead-up to solar ashThe Liberation. “And with that question answered, the natural next step for me was something in 3D. Can I post something that really opens up the world and makes you feel like you can really escape into something, a creation that's otherworldly, that you wouldn't otherwise have the experience of? “I spent a lot of my childhood escaping those bigger experiences.”
Automatic switch It feels like the perfect amalgamation of Hyperlight Wanderer and solar ash. Replace the solar ash Ice skate with a hoverboard, add some friends and you're good to go. Heart Machine developers plan to keep Hyperlight Breaker in early access for about a year, although they noted that this timeline could change with player feedback.
The complete release of Hyperlight Breaker It will support up to three players in online co-op and will have a handful of characters to choose from, each with customizable equipment. I tried a basic slashing sword and a strong destroying sword, as well as a standard rifle and a shotgun-style firearm, and each of them worked well, although I ran out of ammo quickly and often. The heavy sword was slower than the simple blade, but it moved smoothly and struck hard. In Cursed Outpost, before loading a new biome, I was also able to select four abilities called Holobytes from about a dozen options, such as increased armor or faster healing. My favorite trait was the Blooming Corpse Seed, which planted an explosive AOE flower on the bodies of slain enemies.
But once Bullock told me the hoverboard was an option, it was all I wanted to do. I spent a good part of my Hyperlight Breaker demo time sliding across bright green grass, making small jumps and occasionally falling into a pond. I'm still looking forward to finding Dro again and honing my parrying skills on a variety of weapons (and corpse flowers). But mostly I'll be dreaming of that bright blue board until Hyperlight Breaker arrives in early access this summer.
