Ubisoft surprised players with a brand new Battle Royale this week called Hyper Scape. Much like Apex Legend's infamous stealth release, Hyper Scape with practically devoid of early marketing. The Technical Test, which began Thursday, is available to players via Twitch Drops and can be earned by watching streams of the game. Hyper Scape combines elements of many popular Battle Royale games but has a uniquely fresh take on the genre. Ultimately, the game currently feels pretty unpolished thanks to some wonky controls, a fairly uninspired map, and wildly unbalanced weapons. Still, the ultra-fast gameplay and fluid locomotion feels great. Hyper Scape has a lot of potential, but a long way to go.
The Arena Shooter Of Battle Royales
Hyper Scape is better compared to something like Unreal Tournament or Quake than any other major BR game. The arena is made up entirely of urban districts filled with high rise buildings and constricted alleyways. Elevation is your most powerful tool in such a vertical battlefield and there are a variety of tools to help you keep the high ground. Double jump, teleporting, jump pads, and a high flying slam attack are just some of the ways to move around quickly and maintain sightlines on the congested city map. All of that enhanced mobility leads to incredibly chaotic gameplay. Fights play out around rooftops and across multiple city blocks with rocket launchers and energy cannons. Unlike other popular BRs like Apex Legends and Warzone that reward tactical gameplay and outsmarting opponents, Hyper Scape requires a twitc🌱hy skill set and quick reaction times to be succe🦩ssful.
In that regard, Hyper Scape definitely skews younger, and it will be interesting to see how actively the game pursues the Fortnite audience. It's a fast-paced, chaotic game, and while I definitely think there's room for an Arena Shooter-style Battle Royale, I also worry that it's a particularly delicate style of game to balance and it's quite easy to scare players off that feel like they're always getting stomped. Unfortunately, Hyper Scape is falling into predictabl💝e issues right out of the gate.
The Hitscan Elephant In The Room
Hyper Scape has a hitscan sniꦬper rifle that one-shots heads. You probably think that sounds like a bad idea, and it is. The time-to-kill for most weapons is actually fairly long, which leads to exciting chases up, down, and all-around buildings. There are opportunities to escape, to heal, and to turn the fight back. That is, until you get one-shot by a hitscan sniper rifle from a mile away. The game has only been out for a few days and the sniper rifle already feels incredibly anti-fun.
In any Battle Royale, there is a power curve to the weapons you find. In Hyper Scape, there are a handful of incredibly powerful guns and the rest feel totally useless. It doesn't help that hit confirmation is fairly weak, making the weaker 𝓰weapons feel even more pitiful. Players are gravitating heavily towards a small selection o✱f weapons, and while balance changes can certainly solve these problems, the game isn't making the best first impression.
Lackluster Map, Wonky Controls
I have always wanted a BR with an urban map and I appreciate the direction Hyper Scape took, but that city map is fairly uninspired. The battlefield is broken up into a couple of𒅌 dozen sectors which all kind of blend together into one giant mess of tall buildings. There are landmark buildings in most zones, which seem to be the high tier loot areas, but everything else outside of those landmarks is the same generic high rise. The inside of every building is the exact same empty space with 1 staircase that goes from the bottom to the top. There's really no play or strategy you need to develop other than the need to keep high ground and learn to move quickly and♕ unpredictably when a fight starts.
On th🐽e other hand, the game's approach to shrinking the map is fantastic. Rather than using the standard ring that closes in, random city section will close down each round. All of the buildꦕings will slowly disappear and anyone still standing in the zone will take a bit of damage over time and be completely exposed. I love this unique take on the circle and I think it's definitely a strong enough mechanic to anchor an entire BR around. I just need a significantly more interesting map to play in.
Finally, there are some control issues that make playing the game feel pretty lousy. Looting is a chore thanks to a weird delay betwe꧙💞en hitting the loot key and actually grabbing the loot, as well as a strangely long button press time for swapping loot. When you resurrect a teammate, you have to keep your cursor looked on to their model exactly or it interrupts the rez. The biggest offender though is the lack of an input buffer when switching guns. If you try to ADS of fire before the gun switching animation finishes, you won't be able to attack or aim. It's incredibly frustrating in the heat of battle and has gotten my teammates and I killed more times than I'd like to admit.
A Rough But Promising Start
Hyper Scape doesn't need to prove it's right to exist. I think the game is different enough from other Battle Royales and fun enough to justify itself as yet an0ther BR on the market. I'm not sure Hyper Scape should have released, even as a technical test, in its current state. The power imbalance between guns is quite severe and the map feels decidedly Early Access. Hyper Scape has a lot of great tools to work with, and I'm especially fond of their take on the circle, but ultimately it needs a lot of work before I'd ever consider playing it over Apex Legends, Warzone, or even Fortnite.
