Hyper Light Breaker: first major update shows developers are listening
Hyper Light Breaker's first major update is scheduled for next week. It introduces new content and makes changes that show the team is listening to players.
Today, via a press release, Heart Machine, the team behind indie hits like read our preview, but Heart Machine is still planning many major updates in the future. The first major update is now scheduled for next week, April 29th, and it does more than add new content, it will change the way the game works.
Significant changes come to Hyper Light Breaker in first major update next week
The content of the new update was shared in a brief video on the Hyper Light Breaker YouTube channel. The top-level introductions include a new playable breaker, named Rondo, and a new boss or “Crown” named Maw. This new crown is the biggest boss battle the game has to offer yet, and her lair exists underground, which hints at the overall title for this major update: Buried Below. But this update also introduces explorable caves, something that wasn’t present in previous versions. As with most updates, Buried Below will also include new enemies and weapons.
But the most notable change in Hyper Light Breaker will be how runs work. Until this update, players were able to journey up to four times to each procedurally generated world. A death while on a run would send you back to the hub world, but you could still venture back to continuing exploring. Your weapons and other equipment would last for a certain number of runs, but you could also build up a vault in the safety of the hub world. You can use the currency gathered in the Overgrowth to purchase and hoard great gear and save it for the right time.
Now, if you die on a run, that’s it, the Overgrowth resets. You can still extract to return to the hub world where you can upgrade equipment, but you won’t be able to return to a world once you die in it. Your inventory will also be wiped, except for meta progression items. This means gear and weapons are unique to each run. Via Heart Machine’s press release, “This change was made to balance the game around a more traditional roguelike experience, turning each run into a more consistent and rewarding ‘zero to hero’ adventure than before.” The game’s difficulty was a major complaint back in January when the game launched in Early Access. The team hopes that this will “make the game easier to get into, but harder to master…”
Speaking of difficulty, this update will also introduce a tutorial. No matter how much of the game you have played, with this new update installed, the tutorial will run when you boot up the game for the first time. This sounds like a great change because even playing the game for many hours, I was not completely sure of how certain features and mechanics worked.
Overall, this seems like a shift in the right direction. Players will be able to jump in with better knowledge and understanding of how the game works, and runs should feature a more interesting progression system. Breakers will also now function more like certain classes, giving more distinction between characters and opportunities for creative builds. But best of all, seeing major changes like this shows that Heart Machine is listening to its players. If this new direction isn’t the right way to go, and players tell them about it, I have confidence Hyper Light Breaker will course correct. It’s always great when developers hear criticism and adjust. I look forward to giving this major update a try, and seeing what Hyper Light Breaker becomes in the future.
