After a hands-on preview with Hyper Light Breaker in late 2024, we walked away liking Heart Machine’s neon-splashed Drifter follow-up fairly a bit. Our Ted Litchfield referred to as it “a fantastic motion recreation that nails the feel and appear of Hyper Light Drifter in a 3D open world,” which left him hopeful for the way the sport would possibly form up in early entry. Since its launch on January 14, Hyper Light Breaker’s early entry opinions have not been as favorable: At time of writing, it is sitting at a Mixed score on steam after receiving practically 1,600 opinions.
Heart Machine, nevertheless, has wasted no time in addressing the less-than-stellar reception. In truth, in tweets posted shortly after the early entry launch, Heart Machine referred to as the suggestions “encouraging.”
“Part of releasing the sport in early entry means we do tackle the chance of unfavourable early opinions and suggestions,” Heart Machine mentioned. For Hyper Light Breaker, a lot of that suggestions has been centered on the shortage of customization choices for keybinding and sensitivity controls, each for common consolation and as accessibility issues, in addition to efficiency frustrations like stuttering and FPS drops—all of which Heart Machine referred to as “extraordinarily cheap.”
“Receiving massive portions of the identical actionable requests really helps us decide how you can prioritize future updates,” Heart Machine mentioned. “It’s encouraging that these are the problems of us are pointing to as a) it is stuff we had been already planning so as to add in, b) accessibility advocacy is essential and good to see within the trade, and c) they’re simple fixes!”
It’s refreshing to see such a direct and direct response to participant issues—particularly when it reads as extra earnest than a typical company response—nevertheless it’s an illustration of the effective line that builders stroll when releasing a recreation in early entry. Despite figuring out that it is an early model of a recreation, gamers will solely mood their expectations a lot in the event that they’re paying to play it, and recovering from an early overview plunge is a heavy carry when there are dozens of competing video games releasing on Steam every day.
“We’re working proper now, instantly, on these fixes and might be pushing out efficiency / accessibility enhancements ASAP,” Heart Machine mentioned, and from the seems to be of it, they’re protecting to that dedication.
Updates incoming tomorrow Thursday 1/16!!! To embody efficiency enhancements, some essential bug fixes, and expanded choices. More particulars coming within the patch notes however for now here is a 👀 peek on the new settings menu! pic.twitter.com/mSmGzUj9kzJanuary 16, 2025
Last evening, the studio posted a screenshot exhibiting an up to date settings menu, saying that they’d shortly be deploying a hotfix “efficiency enhancements, essential bug fixes, and expanded choices.” According to Heart Machine, the primary patch will arrive someday at the moment.
Hyper Light Breaker is accessible in early entry on Steam.
