Hyper Light Breaker

I had a minor complaint, and the mods of this game banned me for posting it. The complaint was: It's very annoying for the map to open an unskippable cutscene every single time you make a new run. I thought this was a very valid criticism, and at this stage of the game- I felt like anything to improve the core gameplay loop would be a welcome change that could make sure that this is a great successor to HLD. Well apparently the mods or devs of this game are not open to criticisms or complaints about their software, so they banned me from the public discord of their game. I will now be expressly suggesting to my friends (irl and steam) that these devs should not be supported and their other products should not be bought nor played.

Game has been canned, devs have been laid off. It wont ever be finished as intended and it doesnt even run very well as is. Avoid spending money on this.

I liked my time playing this game, but the devs recently confirmed suspicions that development is halted until further notice. Steam shouldn't allow Early Access games to be sold (or put on sale, no less) when it's confirmed that the game is no longer being worked on. Nobody should have the ability to spend $30 on this.

Ending development, due to layoffs. I liked the game but don't buy. We all should be refunded who bought it.

As an avid hyper light drifter fan i have tried to enjoy this game multiple times. I just cant. The only thing that actually ties this game to drifter is the title of the game and the art style. There is no mystifying and jaw dropping scenery like in the original. there is no truly fluid and tight combat system. There are no actually thought out level designs. Characters currently are limited to select weapons to artificially promote character diversity. extraction as a concept is pointless aside from being a source of infinite health. the merchants are chock full of empty item slots and similarly vacant functionality aside from re-rolling the weapon you have. Some people will say that this game shouldnt be like hyper light drifter or that it was never trying to be. That's a poor excuse. Do you know why people are happy to play mario kart? because there are many other ACTUAL mario games. Halo wars? Backed by an entire series. But hyper light drifter got one actual game, and after being abandoned for about a decade they come back to mutilate it in the sake of current gaming trends. Why does the hyper light drifter universe need a glider with a stamina bar? because Zelda and genshin had it, and they were money printing machines why does it need extraction mechanics? tarkov gets away with spitting in the face of its players and makes loads of cash why do we need item rarities? because they're in d2, fortnite, cod, and all the other trendy games. I used verbally fellate heart machine for their work on hyper light drifter. its clear to me now that the passionate individuals have long since left or bent the knees to a more marketable vision. That's all i have for this game

tldr: There was a big overhaul update that turned this into a generic rogulike with no unique charm in it's gameplay direction which it had prior to the update, some changes so drastic it almost feels like false advertisement. Like the selling point of having a gear vault to save gear to try new builds or replace gear you lose. Also, vendors are not vendors anymore and just serve as a means to waste player time to go to them to upgrade gear when the whole point was to see what they were selling while slowly upgrading their skills and upgrading gear. Generic run of the mill rogulike now, with some nice synth music, but other than that, does nothing new or special. I saw a comment where I made this initial rant on the patch notes describe it best: "You can't be late to the party, and not bring anything new to the party." The charm was that it WASN'T just another run of the mill rogulike. Shame. Go play any other rogulike that is in a more polished and complete state. If they revert some of these rug pull, bad faith changes, and make the game go back to it's former charm, but leaving out some of the bad stuff like gear durability, I will gladly change this review. But as of now, cannot reccomend. Honestly not the game I paid for anymore. I think the 1 life run should be an option, not the default. I also don't think all your gear should be dismantled if you successfully complete a cycle either. Also, by removing the ability to purchase gear from vendors you have devalued both materials AND the NPC vendors themselves. Why even have a hub with vendors if there is no quests let alone shop? Why amass currencies and materials? Why have vendors at all? With how downgraded they have become, just let us upgrade our gear ourselves right in our inventory. Then, to top it off you removed the vault system entirely. I am not sure what niche discord feedback you folks are making your decisions off of, but I honestly do not care for roguelikes rogue lights I tolerate if I like the game or visual sytle of the game enough, and that in my opinion is all this game had going for it, as well as the music. Especially with a game as big as Night Reign dropping, and it has player progression that saves after runs, I find it more appealing which I hadn't before. I know there is a dedicated, hungry audience for the more hardcore experience, but as someone that liked the idea of just hopping in with some buddies and getting beat up early on, it getting easier as we find some gear and then get some currencies and come back and upgrade or even buy an upgrade, or even buy a new blade or rail to try. The Vault also was a great feature to save some gear on the off chance you died. I also believe that Durability was annoying BUT preferable to this one shot system now. Personally, I didn't buy this game for one shot runs or a hardcore experience, and I think doing such an overhaul on the game when it was advertised to have item vendors, and gear vaults, etc, is riding the fine line of false advertisement. When doing such a massive change to the core game, and FORCING people to update their saves as well, is NOT okay. And if the overhaul is going to fundementally change the game, it should be an option or setting or mode that we the customer and player, can decide on, not be forced into playing. While it's not as blatantly drastic as the example I am going to make, it's the equivalent to making an looter shooter, but then after some feedback from a very small chunk of customers, turning it into an extraction shooter, melting every players gear they have collected, given them some "please don't quit the game" compensation materials, gutting the vendors so it's not like they can buy some starter gear to get back into the flow of the game, and saying it's the same game. While some functions act the same, I don't even see the point in the HUB or extracting at all now. If you are going to water it all down and pick and choose what features you sold to us to remove after we had already bought the game and no longer able to refund it, is scummy. With it's current setup, you may as well delete the Cursed Outpost, all the NPCs, remove extracting, and just let us upgrade all our gear and Breakers from our inventory and just move from one crown hunt to the next via loading screen. I honestly cannot remember another game in recent memory that had this big of a rug pull. Features that sold me and many others on this game, watered down, or removed outright, and the entire core game changed. And considering how overwhelming enemies can stack up on you, they have too much HP early game as well. I logged in finally after the update(more like downgrade) to try it out and thought I had to complete my first crown or something to re-unlock my vendors wares. But nope, I had to come here to read and realize they are basically just useless upgrade benches that serve as a means to waste players time to go visit them for upgrades, rather than just upgrading items ourselves. One NPC just outright is gone too. The game still has it's visual charm and nice music, but gameplay has taken a huge leap backwards. Gear feeling much less impactful when it's pure RNG. I did a few runs and never once found a heavy blade which were my favorites after the Buster blade which I also didn't find any of, so I just found the highest rarity blade it would give me in those runs and upgraded it. There's no incentive to try new blades or rails moving forward unless they are a pure stat increase on DMG because if they are just common or uncommon and you find a rare or epic, you will never swap off unless you die and you lose everything so it doesn't matter since there is no vault to store the new but lower tier gear. Very, VERY, disappointing honestly. Not quite the rug pull that Necropolis was, but it's making me have Necropolis PTSD. Another game that sold the idea and features of a game, but then started watering down systems and features and then full on abandoning the project. While I am hopeful the devs will make a more fun version that isn't so gear fear heavy for those of us that bought the game wanting to be able to just explore and play with that risk/reward feeling it had pre update, or a mode option or something, I won't be playing much. Removing features that were advertised after just because an after thought or feedback from a few does not justify said choices. I bought in for Early Access to see the game grow, not get watered down and become more niche than it already was. Music is still great, I just wish the game itself made me feel that way still. Had a lot of fun before, hopefully someday I will again. Gonna give a not recommend review on the store page until some changes are made. It's just not the game I was advertised anymore, and not a game I would have bought had these changes been in the game at the launch of Early Access.

How is it they can abandon a game in Early Access, and then still charge for the game now? Shouldn't there be some rule about failing to launch out of Early Access? It's still labeled as In Early Access. And why is the game still available/purchasable if they've abandoned it?

To state my view on the current state of this before my statement below: I would say not to buy this game currently unless they began working on it again as it is very barebones and holds nothing to the amazing game drifter is. So I'm not sure who will or won't see this, but I've felt frustrated about the perspectives on this game from the point they announced its not being worked on anymore. I think its important to clarify a few things for those that may not understand the state that Heart Machine were left in when they switched publishers to Arc Games. Unfortunately, Heart Machine were under Gearbox for some time, which as we know can be the best or worst experience of a studio. Some of this is mentioned in a video /noclip did on them called "Embracing Chaos - How Hyper Light Breaker Survived 2023". Gearbox are known for messing up IPs and many of you know are (hopefully) reading this know how Risk of Rain 2 turned out. Luckily this has been sorted out, but Heart Machine did not have the same experience. Without knowing more details, Gearbox had some control of the direction and push of HLB, and we need to NOT blame Heart Machine for this. It's also good to acknowledge that they in some sense had to release HLB due to funds. After leaving Gearbox there was more than likely more pressure on them to bring in funds before Arc stopped supporting them entirely. Yes there are assumptions, but I feel some of these assumptions have some solid basis. Really this should never have occurred, but I don't think the blame is really on Heart Machine much at all. Game development is complex and they were not put in a fair position.