Three years since the studio's last game and several months after a delay, open-world co-op action roguelike Hyper Light Breaker finally has an official early access release date. It's launching January 14, 2025 on Steam for $29.99.
Hyper Light Breaker has been at the top of my list of most-wanted open-world games and roguelikes for ages now, owing to an unusual combination of elements which creator Heart Machine reckons is first-of-its-kind. To recap my hands-on preview from earlier this year, you (and up to two friends) play as a Breaker and generate a new version of the Overgrowth map with each cycle. Embark on PvE extraction-like expeditions out into that world to collect Prisms which unlock bosses called Crowns. Defeat all the Crowns on the map to face the big bad Abyss King. If you lose all your lives, the cycle resets and you start again.
Along the way, you'll meet and befriend new NPCs, discover and corroborate lore, upgrade your stats permanently, budget items like med kits, and discover new guns and blades to wield – or store in your vault for later.
The home base city evolves as you do, with folks moving in and offering new services. In the Overgrowth, you'll hunt for secrets and resources while under the watch of the Abyss King, hoverboarding and gliding between points of interest. Once you've had enough or completed your immediate objective, you have to extract back to base to recover the limited life spent on that excursion, not unlike the way Risk of Rain makes you clear out level teleporters.
The early access version of Hyper Light Breaker will only have a few playable Breakers, two Crowns to fight, and no Abyss King. More enemies, Crowns, Breakers, gear, and a true ending will be added throughout early access, with Heart Machine expecting to hit 1.0 after "about a year," with wiggle room "depending on the community's response and feedback."
Hyper Light Breaker takes the world and feel of Hyper Light Drifter, Heart Machine's first game, and combines it with the 3D movement demonstrated in 2021's Solar Ash. It's all filtered through an extraction-y action roguelike loop that I found immediately compelling, so this is poised to become my first gaming rabbit hole next year.
This news notably follows layoffs at Heart Machine, which studio community and PR manager Yiyi Zhang said won't affect Hyper Light Breaker. "In fact, a strong and timely launch will rekindle opportunities for those affected as we look to evolve and grow the game throughout Early Access. Our other projects, including Possessor(s), will also remain unaffected," as Game Developer reported.
It ended up getting delayed, but with bottomless open-world combat, Hyper Light Breaker could now be the biggest roguelike of 2025 in more ways than one.
