Heart Machine, the studio behind the new action roguelike Hyper Light Breaker, knows the game has a Mixed rating on Steam after 24 hours in Early Access and is actually pretty cool with it.
In a tweet chain, Heart Machine acknowledges the fact that not everyone's happy with Hyper Light Breaker in its current state and suggests it's simply a product of launching in Early Access. It's a valid argument; the whole point of Early Access is to release an unfinished game into the wild, usually with the intent of receiving constructive criticism in the form of player feedback, i.e., reviews.
"Part of releasing the game in Early Access means we do take on the risk of negative early reviews and feedback," Heart Machine says. "Everyone has different expectations for an Early Access game."
At the time of writing, Hyper Light Breaker has 1,276 Steam reviews and 55% of them are positive. A quick scan of the reviews suggests the majority of complaints are about bugs, balancing, lack of polish, and quality of life stuff, which seems pretty in line with what you'd expect from an Early Access game. That said, it also sounds like there are some legitimate concerns around accessibility, something Heart Machine addresses in its response.
All in all, the developer sounds confident in its ability to patch things up and turn things around.
We're working right now, immediately, on these fixes and will be pushing out performance / accessibility improvements ASAP! Expect more info on timeline tomorrow.January 15, 2025
"All the feedback about the lack of keybinding and sensitivity controls, FPS drops, etc. is extremely reasonable. And, receiving large quantities of the same actionable requests actually helps us determine how to prioritize future updates.
"It's encouraging that these are the issues folks are pointing to as a) it's stuff we were already planning to add in, b) accessibility advocacy is important and good to see in the industry, and c) they are straightforward fixes!"
Heart Machine assures it's working on Hyper Light Breaker issues "immediately" and that "performance / accessibility improvements" are coming "ASAP." There's no official timeline on all of that just yet, but the dev says we'll learn more tomorrow.
Honestly, I'm not much of a roguelike guy myself, but Heart Machine's response to early negative feedback makes me want to give it a shot. That, and my colleague Austin's glowing Hyper Light Breaker hands-on preview from last year.
Or maybe, but probably not, I'll pick something from our guide to the best roguelikes, which I most definitely didn't write.
