Hyper Light Breaker

Development for this game is set to be abandoned in January - DO NOT BUY!

RIP, just play Hyper Light Drifter instead.

Game's been abandoned. Stay away

I would only recommend this game as it is if you are a big fan of Heart Machine and want to support them, otherwise, in it's current state it doesn't really have anything going for it compared to other roguelikes. Its not as if the gameplay itself is bad, it's at least above average (imo) but it isn't complex enough to really keep you engaged through a whole run. One of the biggest detractors is the lack of variety in the entire game, you can pretty much see everything the game has to offer in your first run. The environment isn't even completely random, you can and will notice repeat world layouts. There's only a real handful of enemies and a portion of them are just harder versions/reskins. The holobytes, skill tree, the passives and modifiers all feel as if the devs don't actually want you to scale like other roguelikes in fear of just making the game trivial (which ironically makes it trivial in and of itself). A majority of them are just stat bonuses or the classic "+x% increase" and the actual interesting ones are few and far between. Sadly I had a lot of faith in this game originally and while im still optimistic on where it could go in the future, as it is right now, it doesn't offer enough to warrant such an insane asking price of 30 bucks.

My review will contrast with all the recent reviews due to the layoff, but quite frankly I'm having a good time with the game. I have played some ~50 hours (a lot of time offline and not counted on steam due to internet outage) and I keep coming back due to the atmosphere. So, is it worth the price? For the time I've spent playing it yes. But I would recommend you grab it at a discount due to the current situation. It is just incredibly frustrating that this game will never live up to its true potential, because it was a worthy successor to the first game. I'll never get the satisfaction of dashing and slashing using Rondo in any other video game. The pace of combat is fast and is a good 3D rendition to what Hyper Light Drifter felt like with a 2D top view. The art direction and soundtrack are also great and both align with the atmosphere of the first game. So what happened? IMO the game was too ambitious for its own good, making this an open world rogue like/extraction shooter was not the right pick. They could have made this a rogue like, but in closed spaces rather than an open generated world, which would have made it easier to debug and expand along the way with new zones and areas. Focusing on combat and mechanics rather than spending too much time on bug fixing an open generated world. I still recommend the game if you liked the first, especially if you stick to it for a while, unlocking new characters and upgrades. You can easily get 20 hours worth of gameplay, which is not bad for the price. At the time of writing, the last boss is still missing, but there is good hope this might be coming in an upcoming patch (as per the community manager announcement on the layoff), concluding the game in a satisfying way. As for me, I know I'll keep coming back to this game once in a while, just to use Rondo and chill while exploring.

Game was pushed out into early access way too early, effectively sent out to die. Then got killed and now the devs have been laid off. Save your money.

Update: (admittedly out of frustration) Definitely a no. And more so, this might be the definitive nail in the coffin for me purchasing early access games. There is nothing compelling here and no continuity from world to world. The idea of playing in the world established by HLD sounds great but that is where it ends. What story is being told except to grind and start over? Are you telling the story that the Breakers are what, taking dips into in a computer simulation and the characters are just processes that you attach functions to i.e. exes - meh? Sycoms provide what, throughput/bandwidth...hmmm. Bosses and enemies are rogue processes. Maybe there was a rift in the access to the original IP of HLD. But, this became a sad spin on TRON. What would compel me to explore in a rogue lite game? Players in this title are punished for exploring and not extracting successfully. Taking too long in the world?... "time to get assassinated" and "time to crank up the notoriety" even if you haven't engaged in combat. Weapons and sycoms..."wannabe ghosts i.e. Destiny" locked to characters/classes along with weapons none the less which does not sound like much openness for creativity in "builds." And, I can only look a certain way, also locked to class? Wow. Perhaps I was hoping for too much, HLD in a 3D representation with somewhere between Borderlands and Destiny openness. And RPG elements, compelling but abstract story (don't need text or voice overs), character progression, lore expansion through world exploration. No class based gate keeping. It truly is my fault for envisioning something different. What I do think though is that if its a platformer in a 3D world with a nod to HLD, just state that and make the time and $ investment worth it. Stop painting the picture this is something more. I would be perfectly alright with that. This is taking Zelda, changing it to Pong, and stating the paddles can be upgraded to hit the ball harder maybe even with backspin...if your paddle is blue. But playing a match too long speeds the ball up, makes it smaller and sends 5x the number while playing against the boss paddle on the other side. But I should explore how far off screen I can move my paddle and see if it comes around the other side or something. Maybe it will be a different color and not have anything I can use. Previous Review: TLDR, no or wait is where this falls with me. What you might want to know... Three things: One this is a rogue-like third person and not an action adventure RPG title as labeled/tagged so much as a progressive 3rd person title where you level up (0 character development and no role to play). Two, It is early access so understand you are stepping into an unfinished title. Three, there is not enough content presently and personally I could not make it that many hours before I decided to uninstall. There you go. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Why? Mainly, changing the direction of this title to be a rogue-like supposed open world 3rd person is not what I personally signed up for. It was coined as an open world action adventure RPG when it was announced and first released into early access. The game tags/attributes in steam still reflect that. I personally feel like this is bait and switch which saddens me. Hyper Light Drifter was an amazing title and I wanted to discover more of the world through this title. I loved its abstract nature and telling of story through the world, short animations and imagery. With the change in direction I do not believe this will be the case for Hyper Light Breaker. There is nothing compelling which would lead me to investing in character development. In fact, there is none to speak of, i.e. character development or role in a story. Progression for the sake of progression is not what I was looking for and not what the original title advertised itself as. I have other games for that. It is rare that I state a title may be out for a cash grab and I am reticent to apply that label here. That said, this title is starting to resemble an empty shell with shiny paint. Maybe there will be another shift in direction. But for now, if you were looking for story, adventure, exploration, and overall lore building which leads to those things that pull you into a title, this is not the one in its current state. Hyper Light Breaker is unfortunately breaking the formulaic world the franchise was so successful in creating.

I dont know why this has an online mode. No one is online to play with you. You need some help going on certain missions and you can't ask for help because there is nobody online. Not recommended. Save your money and buy something else. I really liked the game at first but then I realised the issues with it and it stopped being fun. Dev is also not human friendly. I am sorry about it. Buy the previous version instead. It's way better.