Hyper Light Breaker has promising bones: Early Access review

There is something good here. I want to make sure I start by saying that, because the rest of this review may not make it sound like that is true, but it is. Hyper Light Breaker launched in Early Access on Steam a few weeks ago to mostly negative reviews from players. Initially, this was a surprise to me, someone who had played roughly two hours worth of previews of the game in 2024 and was excited to jump into the world again. The Steam reviews have since leveled out somewhat, with 63% positive reviews at the time of writing.

I jumped into the game with tempered excitement, looking for the major flaw that would suddenly jump out at me. I played alone for most of the review period, eventually convincing one friend to play for a little while. After double-digit hours with the game, I see where the flaws of this game are, but I can’t help but admit that I still had a lot of fun.

Hyper Light Breaker is a multiplayer open-world rogue-lite developed by Heart Machine (Hyper Light Drifter, Solar Ash) and published by Arc Games (Gigantic: Rampage Edition, Remnant 2). It is described as a prequel to the indie hit Hyper Light Drifter and takes place in the same world. Players take on the role of Breakers, venturing into the dangerous Overgrowth to gather resources, fight the Crowns, and put together the pieces of the history of this world. Hyper Light Breaker is the first time Heart Machine has made a multiplayer game and the first time they have launched a game using Steam’s Early Access.

Launching in Early Access

Early Access is a strange thing. Every game handles it differently. The only commonality across all Early Access games is that they are not finished yet. There are some great examples of games that used Early Access well. Baldur’s Gate 3 spent almost three years in Early Access before going on to win Game of the Year at every video game award show imaginable. But there are certainly bad examples too. Looking at you, The Day Before, I haven’t forgotten about you.

At best, Early Access is a tool for developers to start selling the game so that they can fund creating the rest of development and receive helpful player feedback. At worst, it’s a way for developers to excuse a broken game by calling it unfinished, and trick players into paying for it. Thankfully, Hyper Light Breaker is much closer to the good side of this spectrum.

After playing for a few hours, it was easy to tell that Hyper Light Breaker could have benefited from spending more time before the Early Access launch. The content is plentiful, but it can get repetitive quickly. The Breakers are great. One of them is a tanuki. But you can only play as the starting Breaker until you defeat a boss to unlock the others. There are only two Crowns currently available to fight. To complete a run you will need to defeat three Crowns, meaning you’ll have to fight one of them twice. Then there is the nameless rabble of basic enemies that introduce more variety into the exploration.

The Good and the Bad

Speaking of exploring, Hyper Light Breaker added tons of traversal options. The hoverboard, glider, and jump pads combine with dashing up walls and double-jumping to make nearly anywhere accessible. Some locations can start to feel repetitive after a few hours, but I greatly enjoyed stumbling across my first Laboratory, which was a dungeon full of challenging enemies that killed me moments after I arrived. In some ways, I think the game’s lack of tutorials and explanations can make the exploration and discovery more satisfying.

But in other ways, it can compound its frustrations. Hyper Light Breaker is difficult, and not always in a fair way. Most of the opening hours of my gameplay were spent dying to swarms of common enemies. The wolf/dogs were particularly frustrating. Attacks are so quick and poorly telegraphed that within the first few hours, I had completely abandoned trying to parry, and instead chose to dash in and out of danger. I don’t think I’ve been able to successfully parry an enemy attack during this review period.

This would be fine, but until a recent patch, healing items were not easily available. That seems to be a common theme with Hyper Light Breaker. Players start the game with a blade. No guns, no healing items, and no clear explanation of how to obtain them. I wasn’t able to create and use a medkit until five hours into the game. Thankfully for new players, a new patch allows players to start the game with one medkit, rather than zero.

But I think this is truly where the crux of Hyper Light Breaker’s problems lie. The opening hours are punishingly difficult and offer little explanation, leaving many players confused and frustrated about what to do. Those players who are patient and persistent may eventually find success, but may also quickly grow bored of the repetitiveness once they’ve reached a point of stability.

The Promising Bones

Underneath its issues, Hyper Light Breaker has a promising gameplay loop. Each new run creates a procedurally generated 3D world, the Overgrowth. Prepare at the home base with various weapons and upgrades, and then dive in. If you die in the same Overgrowth four times before beating the Crowns, the world resets and you can try again with a newly generated world.

Crowns can only be challenged after defeating a certain number of elite enemies and gaining prisms. Other various resources can be brought back to the home base to open new shops, upgrade your character’s stats, purchase weapons, and unlock memories of the world’s past. Defeat three Crowns (you’ll have to fight one of the Crowns twice because there are only two in the game right now), and you have won. In future updates, that will mean fighting the Abyss King, but that’s not available yet.

While in the Overgrowth, there’s no time to wait around. Groups of enemies will periodically spawn nearby. That will upgrade to meteor showers that make certain areas of the map dangerous. Eventually, an assassin will appear, chasing you across the entire map. So the best course of action is to get in, get what loot you can, and get out as fast as you can.

After my first few deaths, I took things slow. I knew I wasn’t ready to take on the challenging enemies yet. I focused on gathering resources to upgrade my home base and my gear. There is some satisfaction in overcoming the challenge, and returning the next time with more powerful gear and a better understanding of what to do. But I also understand that this might not be the kind of experience everyone is looking for.

What’s Next

I would like to see where Hyper Light Breaker goes from here. In the two weeks since launch, Heart Machine has already issued a patch to address some of the concerns players have brought to their attention. Players now start with the ability to craft a medkit and enemies have been changed to notice players at a shorter distance, which will hopefully limit frustrating mobs of enemies.

Hyper Light Breaker is ambitious. It’s the first time Heart Machine is creating a multiplayer game and their unique approach to the rogue-lite genre is worth tracking. I agree that had they waited a little longer, and added more content, this early access launch would not have been so rough. While I did have fun, I would be hard-pressed to convince my friends, or anyone for that matter, to spend $30 on this in its current state. It could be worth it if you’re a huge fan of Hyper Light Drifter, have the patience to wade through the frustratingly challenging combat, and especially if you know a few friends that could be interested too.

For now, I will likely jump into the Overgrowth again, especially when / if new content is released. Heart Machine has yet to release a specific roadmap for future updates, though they do plan to release more Crowns and Breakers, and generally improve gameplay through player feedback.

Thanks to Heart Machine and Arc Games for the chance to try out Hyper Light Breaker. The game is available in Early Access on PC via Steam.