Hot on the heels of its beloved pixel-art action RPGHyper Light Drifter, developer Heart Machine took a bold new approach with its follow-upHyper Light Breaker. Transitioning from the 2D isometric pixel art style to a third-person 3D perspective was ambitious on its own, but the studio went even further by shifting to a multiplayer roguelite format featuring multiple playable characters, countless weapons, and an ever-shifting open world to explore.Hyper Light Breaker’s Early Access release was not quite as well-received as its predecessor—currently holding a Mixed score on Steam as opposed toDrifter’s Very Positive rating—but Heart Machine’s proven track record for listening to its players bodes well for the title’s potential to hit the mark.
Heart Machine recently shared a roadmap detailingplanned additions toHyper Light Breaker, with many items on the roadmap being direct responses to player feedback. In an interview with Game Rant, lead producer Michael Clark went into further detail about the roadmap’s contents and the key role that reviews and fans on Discord have played in informing the team’s Early Access development plans.
Hyper Light Breaker Is Focused On Improvements From Feedback
An Early Access releaseimplies a work-in-progress game, and Clark reveals that the team was prepared to listen to feedback and criticism as soon as it arrived. Having prepared for inevitable player feedback, he noted that the team didn’t need to change course on existing plans. Smartly, the team set aside time to take action on important points of feedback immediately, leading to a roadmap that’s refreshingly responsive to what players are saying. Clark says:
“We “held space” in our planning for reacting to player feedback, so most of our roadmap highlights aren’t going to push backward. We assumed (correctly!) that we’d want to spend a lot of time reacting to player feedback around balancing and tuning the game, as well as squashing bugs - so you’ll see significant changes in the next few monthly updates around those goals.”
In particular, Clark mentioned delivering “a more robust tutorial and onboarding process as that has been a major fan request,” which addresses a key complaint from the game’s currently ranked “most helpful” review on Steam. He also revealed that the team is “looking at what sort of gameplay changes and features we can introduce that improve the overall flow of the game.” The team is clearly closely listening to player feedback—that earlier-mentioned review even received a response from Heart Machine addressing its suggestions—and Clark says that fans can expect to see some majorimprovements toHyper Light Breakerwithin the coming months.
Hyper Light Breaker Is Rebalancing Enemies, Parrying, and Combat Flow
In addition to a smoother onboarding experience, Clark revealed plans for improving the game’s flow and difficulty curve. As it stands,Hyper Light Breakeris a hard game—too hard, according to some reviewers—and some specific improvements are planned to ease its larger pain points, as Clark notes:
“Overall we’re looking to make it easier for players to get in and get their feet wet before the challenge ramps up. We’ve tuned a lot of enemies and gear to this end, and we have improvements to the player’s parry and changes to how some different moves ‘cancel’ out of other moves to make them snappier and more responsive. There’s a lot more, but we’ll save all the details for the patch notes on release!”
Parrying is an important mechanic inHyper Light Breaker, serving as a means to heal and possessing some interactivity with the game’s weapons and upgrades. Despite the mechanic’s importance, some reviewers have noted that it’s a touch too difficult to pull off reliably. Refining parrying to be more responsive and introducing some smoother animation canceling should do a lot to improve the flow of combat, while a retuning of enemies and gear ought to give players a more inviting challenge. Heart Machine has big plans forHyper Light Breaker, and there’s little doubt that the game will enjoy significant improvements thanks to player feedback and the studio’s willingness to listen.
