Hyper Light Breaker, 3D prequel to action-RPG Hyper Light Drifter, won’t make it out of early access. Developers Heart Machine have announced that its development is ending, with an unspecified number of layoffs at the studio having been announced at the same time.
It’s a depressingly rapid downward trajectory for the follow-up to a game which generally received strong and positive reception, tempered by some criticism of elements such as how it handled communicating the best way to keep making forward progress.
Heart Machine confirmed the winding down of Hyper Light Breaker’s development and the forthcoming layoffs to Game Developer, but didn’t specify how many workers will be affected by the latter. “This was not our ideal path, but rather the only one available given the circumstances,” the studio wrote in a statement.
“While this path will include a conclusion on the project, it reflects broader forces beyond our control, including shifts in funding, corporate consolidation and the uncertain environment many small studios like us are navigating today,” they continued. Heart Machine went on to suggest that, while the game’s full original vision will be left unrealised, there are plans to polish it as much as possible over the coming months.
“We still have something coming in January,” a spokesperson told Game Developer. “We plan to deliver something meaningful and as polished and complete as we can given our current circumstances. We’re doing our best to refine what we can, complete key systems, and have the game culminate in a satisfying punctuation point.”
They added that there’ll be no updates or dev Q and A sessions for the rest of 2025, citing the need to be able to work on the final release while facing “limited resources with team members rolling off the project”.
The early access version of Hyper Light Breaker which only came out in January this year, with news of its first major update following in April. Despite the work that’s gone in, a mixed initial reception has lingered. James summed up his thoughts after jumping in right out of the gate thusly:
The real meat of a roguelike is, to be fair, not the climactic challenge but the preparation for it: the massing of gear and experience, and the primeval pleasure of Numbers Going Up. As much as Hyper Light Breaker is unfinished and more than slightly broken, its biggest issue is how that meaty part just isn’t all that enjoyable. The combat is awkward, the progression is doddering, and the world isn’t interesting enough to motivate indefinitely repeating visits to it. That makes for an awfully long to-do list, early access or no.
Our best to all affected by the layoffs at Heart Machine.
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