Hyper Light Breaker

I didn't want to believe the bad news because I've been waiting for this game for ages. It looks beautiful but the gameplay is just really average in its current state. All the systems seem unbalanced, the combat isn't that fun, and there isn't a compelling narrative as to why your doing anything. I hope they manage to turn things around, but in my heart I'm just waiting for hyper light drifter 2!

Steam apparently won't let me write a review unless I've first selected 'Yes' or 'No' to the question 'Would you recommend this game to other players?' I would rather choose neither option at this time. My real recommendation would be this: If you want to support a studio with a history of making masterpieces while they figure out how to make an entirely different kind of masterpiece then please do, especially if this looks like your kind of jam. Hyper Light Breaker currently sits in an incredibly frustrating place where it's got a lot of good stuff going for it but a couple things make it borderline unplayable. I really, REALLY, want to like and recommend this game, but I just can't as it currently sits. It sounds like the Devs are aware of what's wrong so here's hoping they can finesse it into the masterpiece it has the potential to become. They've done it before so my hopes are high. Now, I'm a massive fan of the Dark Souls / Bloodborne / Elden Ring games (except DS2. We don't talk about DS2) so I really appreciate a game that challenges the player, punishes inexperience, and rewards when you 'git gud'. Breaker has the promise of becoming something really special. The near infinite replayability of a rouguelike with a Souls-like attitude toward difficulty and reward. Combine that with a ♥♥♥♥♥♥' dope art style, interesting character designs, and a pervasive chill tone and you've got a game I'd never stop playing. But it's just not there yet. What needs fixing: - Camera Lock-on. Sweet Christ please fix this. Seriously, if this one thing were fixed the game would be 80% better. - Rate of enemy difficulty increase over time VS Player Character level up speed is very unbalanced. Enemies already hit harder than many would find acceptable, but make them level up faster than you do and there's no hope. I also don't understand why leveling up is tied to interacting with shrines in a game like this. - Focus on leveling VS focus on exploration. If you wanna have a chance of maintaining level-up momentum against your opponents so you have a moderately longer run and maybe get to a crown or two (forget making it to the last boss) you've gotta adopt a mad 'kill everything as fast as possible' attitude at the cost of exploration and finding desirable gear. This ruins any sense of Chill you might have hoped for as well. - Roguelike meta progression is too slow and not meaningful or interesting. Rogue games live or die by this metric. Sure, when starting out in a roguelike you're almost certain to die sooner than you'd like because you haven't unlocked anything yet. Herein lies the actual game progression of Roguelikes. Rate of progression needs a serious boost but more importantly what you unlock needs a massive creative juice injection. Any kind of gameplay gets inevitibley stale, which is why Roguelikes are so successful. Rogues keep the formula interesting by constantly throwing new variables into the equation. Skul the Hero Slayer is my ultimate example of the kind of crazy ♥♥♥♥ a rogue can become where no two playthroughs are anything alike, but there are many other worthy examples. A good Roguelike will stay engaging long after all meta progression has been accomplished. Without this touch of chaos a games lifespan is only as long as it's meta progression, if interest can be held for even that long. Hyperlight Drifter, the Devs prior creation, is a masterpiece, but it's also an entirely different kind of game. What they've created here in Breaker holds so much promise its got me rabid for what it could become.

I really enjoyed the original identity of the game before the April v0.6 update. The initial extraction, looting, and shooting mechanics needed some refinement. Things I assumed refinement would come for overtime because it's early access. What I WASN'T expecting was the game scrapping its original identity that made me interested in playing it in the first place. Instead now having become a dime-a-dozen rouge-like I never opted in to play. This update along made virtually all of the vendors useless, character customization is far more limiting, and the game far less accessible. There's isn't really build-crafting or strategy anymore. You just pick stuff up with a higher rarity and power, hoping it synergies. If it was implemented as a separate game-mode, that would've been fine and would've solved some issues the game had too. However, flipping the game on its head like this and forcing it onto the playerbase this isn't the way to go. I'm personally having way less fun in the game's current state (v0.6). The level of frustration you can get from the new system can far outweigh the fun, especially knowing what it used to be. The core gameplay of combat, enemies, and abilities are fine and lots of fun. But this fun can be drowned out you lose all your loot and progress from dying once. Especially when death comes from an unjustified source, like: BUGS. You know, something expected from early-access game. Extraction is now basically nothing. It's not a cool "fight-for-your-life" anymore, it's a mundane menu option at the totems. This is an incredibly cop-out way to handle the feedbck towards it. They could've at least scaled the extraction battles to the world difficulty or made them more open areas. Instead, they've been effectively removed. Unless they restore the old system in some way or implement some sort of alternative that covers similar ground, my review will remain negative. The game's just exhausting to play through now and lost the unique blend of looting-extraction-action with friends that I was in it for. The lighting system in this game also tanks the frame-rate, even on its lowest setting (that isn't just turning it off). They really need to change it sense the game's visuals are super reliant on the lighting. The game itself isn't bad, I'm sure plenty are enjoying the new changes, especially with the outcry of people who wanted this to become yet another rouge-like. For me, however, this is no longer the game I wanted to play. It's a real shame and I wish the devs would've stuck to their guns on the extraction stuff to make the game a better version of itself rather than becoming something else altogether.

[h2]Hyper Light Breaker will not be receiving further development for the time being.[/h2] [h3][u] We’re incredibly grateful for all the money you’ve given us since Early Access. Please continue to stay foolish and buy our games for any future scams and frauds.[/u][/h3] [b]- The Arc Games Team[/b]

Do NOT purchase this game. It has been abandoned by the studio while still in Early Access. This game IS NOT FINISHED. It had plenty of promise and the development team was doing well to get it there up till being abruptly taken out before the EA goals were met.

Wow another arc games publish that went horribly wrong and closed development who could've seen that coming! I feel so bad for Heart Machine as hyper light drifter has an incredibly fond place in my heart. No refunds either is very telling from Arc as per usual, scumbags.

This game is the definition of missed potential. Hyper Light Drifter was one of my favorite games ever made. This game too had promise. Whether through mismanagement, greed, or incompetency, Hyper Light Breaker is a stain on the series. The game is not being maintained. Save your money. Don't waste your time. What a disappointment.