A game on Steam arouses contradictory emotions in me: the more fun I really enjoy, the less I want to play it.
On January 14, 2025, Hyper Light Breaker started in the early access. A game that I have in love with since I saw the first trailer. I immediately liked the style and the Hack’n’Slash combat system of the Roguelite. In addition, you can sweat through the open world with a hoverboard or plunge with a glider of cliffs-awesome.
Hyper Light Breaker’s goal is very simple: Of course you have to save the world – what else?
To do this, you slip into the role of different breakers. These are the characters with which you plunge into the fight. First of all, only one breaker called Mankillion is available. In the course of the game, however, you unlock more.
While a roguelike has to meet certain criteria such as a Permadeath and turn -based gameplay, it is sufficient for roguelites if they only contain a few components of the model. Many roguelites such as Hades, Cult of the Lamb or Dead Cells often offer the opportunity to achieve permanent progress in the form of levels, new weapons or skills.
Only a flawless fighter can save the world
In Hyper Light Breakers, the world – a planet called World of Light (German: World of Light) – is threatened by the mighty Abyss King. It is up to you to stop the dreaded ruler and his followers to save the country.
In order to overthrow the Abyss King, you have to collect keys in a region overrun by nasty creatures in order to be able to compete against the so -called crowns. These boss opponents, as lackeys of the king, are the first real hurdle that you have to face. Each boss has its own combat style. You have to learn your attack patterns and adapt your build to defeat them. However, this can take some attempts, as these fights also demand their skills.
In total, you have to take three crowns down, one of these opponents being stronger than previous. If you fail four times on the Crowns – or let your life elsewhere – throws the game back in the fight against Abyss King. The game world as you know it is lost and a new cycle begins. With every new cycle you get a new game world and every crown that has already been defeated is fit and cheerful again. Because for the rescue of the world you only have 4 attempts.
The Hyper Light Breaker co-op adventure in the trailer-comes on Steam in 2024
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A roguelite that stands out from the rest of the genre
Genre fans already know the principle of defeating every boss in a single run without defeat from games such as Hades or the new co-op sworn. However, Hyper Light Breaker differs in the open world and the gameplay loop.
You don’t just walk from level to level or from room to room on a run. Instead, you travel through a procedural, open world. The game also uses individual mechanics of an extraction shooter. So you start in every cycle with a standard loadout, but you have to find the really good weapons and armor in the open world. Alternatively, you can collect various resources and exchange them for worthwhile equipment in the social hub.
However, the equipment has a kind of life. A sword can be taken around 2-3 times in a run and loses these life points if you fall in combat-regardless of the fact that a cycle ends after 4 defeats anyway. So you have to be careful of your equipment, because you don’t want to lose the extremely useful armor with fire resistance to an insignificant minion before you defeated the boss that makes your life difficult with fire attacks.
As a roguelite, Hyper Light Breaker also offers you opportunities to get permanent progress in the form of improvements, even if you fail with a cycle. For example, you can unlock a drug for regeneration of life points or improve the values of your breaker.
It’s fun, but I’m afraid to continue playing
The large weakness of Hyper Light Breaker is the current level of development. It is in early access and you can see that too. There are no content that the game simply needs – above all a real tutorial that should come in accordance with the latest roadmap in the course of the year. The missing tutorial made the first few hours to find out, for which I need which resources, how I get the drug or unlock a new breaker. Still, I like the gameplay loop.
Hyper Light Breaker really enjoys so far. I gambled it in co-op mode with Meinmmo editor Lydia, who already completed some roguelites and carries me through the crisp boss fights-avoid and parry are not my biggest strengths, I need real shooting iron so that I can do something.
By the way, you can read what Lydias thinks of Hyper Light Breaker:
Lydia’s impression of Hyper Light Breaker
Roguelites in all shapes and colors are my big gaming love. I conquered all bosses in Moonlighters with a broom, fought myself from the underworld in Hades, slaughtered tens of thousands of opponents in vampires Survivors and already earned some gold stickers in Balatro. Accordingly, I have a frustration tolerance that I would describe above average: where others rage quinces, the fun starts for me.
Nevertheless, this “only one round” effect in Hyper Light Breaker has simply not set itself. Instead, I have the feeling that I don’t want to start a round at all if I did not sleep at least 8 hours and have warm -up exercises so that I can react to opponents at lightning speed that jumps out of off to my back. While I fall back into the fray in other genre representatives to get a little further every time, I catch hesitation here-after all, I don’t want to go on it through a tiny carelessness and lose my beloved double blades.
I think this is not only the weapon’s durability system, but also that there is no simply quantifiable progression that gives me the feeling that when I have come that far, I can do it further.
That is a shame, because with the hoverboard through the open world to jet, disassemble opponents and collecting hidden loot in every corner is actually huge fun. I also find it exciting that the game demands that I will consider considerations: Do I still take the detour to collect a new weapon? Or do I go to the extraction point on the shortest way to secure my previous prey? And when I have succeeded in the evacuation and I examined my achievements, I actually have the satisfactory feeling of having put a few of her treasures of an merciless, enemy world – just to lose it too quickly if the next crown professionally disassembled.
In short: I would like to love Hyper Light Breakers if it would only let me.
In the meantime, Hyper Light Breaker has won me as a fan and despite various weaknesses that the game currently still has, I absolutely want to play it. However, I am always afraid that I could lose my loving gear – or even the whole game world, including my progress in the fight against the crowns. That currently prevents me from playing it regularly.
If I am very tired after a long working day and have the feeling that my response time is rather impaired, then I think: “Hm, I should rather play something else today. No desire to lose my stuff. ” The more fun I have with my current gear, the greater the fear of losing it. So there is a game in front of me that I want to play and still don’t play.
Hyper Light Breaker wants you to start and fail a cycle. It wants you to lose your equipment and start again. You want you to accept some defeats before defeating the crowns and the mighty Abyss King and saving the world. I have to get used to it first.