Thanks to the success of games like PUBG and Fortnite, it seems every big name publisher is trying to get a piece of the battle royale pie. Ubisoft recently threw its hat in the battle royale ring with Hyper Scape, a BR game that generally retains the same basic “last man standing” premise as all the other BR games, but experiments with a slew of new ideas to help it stand apart. A lot of Hyper Scape‘s ideas are fresh and it succeeds in making some genuine innovations in the battle royale space. But it all fails to come together into a cohesive whole, and that is a direct result of its combat.
A first-person shooter game like Hyper Scape lives and dies by whether or not its gunplay is entertaining, and the combat in Hyper Scape is far more frustrating than it is fun. There are a number of reasons for this, chief among them the health system. Hyper Scape characters have a ton of health, and the game also utilizes a regenerating health mechanic. Because of this, most firefights tend to end with one player simply fleeing the scene, which is not difficult to do thanks to the game’s super-quick movement system and Hack items.
Player health is one reason why Hyper Scape‘s combat is so frustrating, but the other reason is the way the loot works. Players have to upgrade guns by picking up duplicates, which is a fine enough idea on paper, but the side effect is that weapons in the early stages feel under-powered with overly-restrictive magazine sizes. Hyper Scape‘s combat is perhaps the least entertaining thing about it, and in a genre that’s all about shooting opponents, it’s a significant flaw that will likely send most players back to their other battle royale games of choice. But while the combat in Hyper Scape is a bust, the game does admittedly shine in other areas.
More than any other battle royale game that’s come out in the past few years, Hyper Scape is all about movement. The game lets players slide and double jump their way through a futuristic city with plenty of vertical elements. In lieu of a deadly gas cloud, Hyper Scape instead has different sections of the city rendered uninhabitable, which forces players to be on the run more than in other BR games. This goes well with the movement system, and ensures players are actually having a fun time when getting to the safe zone instead of just running in a straight line.
There are other innovations Hyper Scape brings to the table that tweak the standard battle royale formula in compelling ways. Besides the movement system, the game also helps keep players invested, even when they have been knocked out. When playing in squads, players become digital, ghost-like versions of themselves when eliminated, and they are free to scout ahead for their living teammates, pinging useful items and enemies alike. This ensures that even in death, Hyper Scape players are still engaging directly with the game instead of simply being passive observers.
Ever since Apex Legends came on the scene, revival systems have been common in battle royale games, and Hyper Scape is no exception. While in this digital ghost form, Hyper Scape players can use special respawn points that pop up on the ground where enemies are killed. If their teammates are able to reach it, they can then revive the fallen player and get them back into the action. It’s definitely an interesting take on the mechanic and stands as another quality innovation that Hyper Scape brings to the table.
Another fun twist that Hyper Scape has is its Hacks. These abilities fit a lot of the molds that one would expect from a hero-shooter, except they can be utilized by any character. This includes things like throwing up giant walls or even turning into an armored bouncy ball that allows for quick navigation across the map. These Hacks inject quite a bit of fun into the Hyper Scape experience, though one has to wonder if the game’s characters would have been better off if they had intrinsic Hacks.
As it stands, the various Hyper Scape characters players can choose are plain and generic at best, and incredibly obnoxious at worst. One character who stands out as particularly annoying is Burns, who likes to say, “A fight without me?” endlessly whenever teammates get into a skirmish. In situations where players are engaging multiple teams at once, Burns repeats the line over and over again, and it’s enough to make one want to mute the audio entirely.
Since Hyper Scape‘s Champions are not very interesting, it hurts the game’s sense of progression as it’s hard to care about unlocking any kind of cosmetics for them. This, in turn, makes the Hyper Scape Battle Pass seem not very appealing, an issue that’s compounded by its lack of worthwhile content in general. Hyper Scape‘s inability to make one care about its progression system really hurts it, especially since it has to compete with other live service games that simply provide more worthwhile and interesting content with their Battle Passes.
Hyper Scape also stumbles with its battle royale map, which is completely devoid of personality. While the design of the map lends itself well to the game’s movement system, it otherwise looks like a generic futuristic city lacking any sort of prominent areas of interest. The architecture differs here and there but the city largely looks the same from one block to the next, and one would be hard-pressed to even remember where exactly they were on the map.
Hyper Scape‘s uninteresting map, inability to make progression rewarding, and its painful combat keep it from reaching its full potential. There are definitely some tweaks that Ubisoft Montreal could make to Hyper Scape‘s combat to make it a far more entertaining experience, and one has to imagine that the game will evolve based on feedback to Season 1. As it stands, however, the game struggles to stake its claim on the genre.
Hyper Scape is out now for PC, PS4, and Xbox One, with PS5 and Xbox Series X versions also in development. Game Rant reviewed the game on Xbox One.
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