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When I first played open-world roguelike Hyper Light Breaker, conditions weren't ideal. It was a dated build at a cramped booth at Summer Game Fest, and even then the game was fun. Developer Heart Machine hasn't missed yet, and Hyper Light Breaker, out January 14 in Steam early access for $30, is a promising combination of ideas I haven't seen before. It felt better in a recent hour-long co-op session with two of the devs, where I could actually kick back with my own PC and get a better sense of how this game operates. There's a spicy PvE extraction edge to it that I hadn't totally picked up on at first blush. Playing in a group also adds a lot, and some polish in the newer build really showed, so I left the session hungrier than ever to jump into Hyper Light Breaker with friends.
This is just my Tuesday afternoon sword
The general loop is to dive into a procedurally generated open world called the Overgrowth to hunt down keys that unlock the gates to bosses called Crowns. Beat all the Crowns and you'll unlock the final boss, the Abyss King, who won't be available at the start of early access. Before you depart, you build a loadout of swords and guns and other gear for your Breaker, assembled from whatever you've found and banked while exploring or purchased from the vendors at the hub, and spend a bit of energy to fire up the teleporter. There are three Breakers for now, acting like classes for the game, with more characters and more pseudo-subclasses to come. You only get your energy back if you successfully extract from the map, surviving waves of enemies at the exit teleporter. If you die, that energy is gone, as is any extra gear you're carrying and a chunk of your Bright Blood currency. If you lose all your energy before you clear all the Crowns, the map resets and you start a new cycle.
This sets up an extraction-flavored cycle of amassing and budgeting gear, all while discovering and befriending and upgrading vendors at the hub. All of the sudden, this is one of the most interesting parts of this game. As you defeat enemies on each excursion, the difficulty will ramp up and the Abyss King will start to send assassins, explosions, and other dangers your way. Things can get out of hand quickly if you stay too long, so you want to get in, rush your target, and get out. Our session ended up being multiple short trips that ended with a successful Crown fight, whereas I previously tried to do as much as possible in one run and got stomped by the boss. Bad idea, it turns out.
"It's very much an amalgamation of roguelike and extraction games," says lead producer Michael Clark. "It's unlike any specific extraction title out there, but it does have that sort of loot loop. It's not Escape from Tarkov by any stretch, but it is following that same, you know, you have a stash of items that you're gonna curate. It works with the roguelike system and feels different. We're not very direct in any single inspiration."
Hyper Light Breaker overflows with small decisions offering risk and reward, and coming from Heart Machine, its moment-to-moment play is unsurprisingly excellent. Ranged and melee combat as well as movement felt noticeably better in this build – partly because I had some knowledgeable teammates to help with mobs, and also because the parry has been updated to heal you a little bit. Delicious.
There's a palpable back-and-forth flow to fights that punishes senseless aggression. You can deal a lot of damage at once, but that's also true of enemies, so it pays to pick your moment and prioritize avoiding incoming damage. It took a while for this to click, the action roguelike part of my brain still running in Hades 2 and Windblown mode, so I may have burned more than my fair share of our healing supplies. I did, at least, do well against the boss who I'd fought once before – imagine a wisp from Risk of Rain but bipedal and a trained boxer.
Hyper Light Breaker has excited me since its announcement and hasn't disappointed since. As we finally approach launch, there's more good news too: until January 28, the game will come bundled with Hyper Light Drifter, the excellent 2016 2D action game that kickstarted this universe, for free. This is still the biggest January game launch for me, and increasingly it looks like it could be one of the standout roguelikes of the entire year.
