After a hands-on preview with Hyper Light Breaker in late 2024, we walked away liking Heart Machine's neon-splashed Drifter follow-up quite a bit. Our Ted Litchfield called it "a great action game that nails the look and feel of Hyper Light Drifter in a 3D open world," which left him hopeful for how the game might shape up in early access. Since its launch on January 14, Hyper Light Breaker's early access reviews haven't been as favorable: At time of writing, it's sitting at a Mixed rating on steam after receiving nearly 1,600 reviews.
Heart Machine, however, has wasted no time in addressing the less-than-stellar reception. In fact, in tweets posted shortly after the early access launch, Heart Machine called the feedback "encouraging."
"Part of releasing the game in early access means we do take on the risk of negative early reviews and feedback," Heart Machine said. For Hyper Light Breaker, much of that feedback has been centered on the lack of customization options for keybinding and sensitivity controls, both for general comfort and as accessibility concerns, as well as performance frustrations like stuttering and FPS drops—all of which Heart Machine called "extremely reasonable."
"Receiving large quantities of the same actionable requests actually helps us determine how to prioritize future updates," Heart Machine said. "It's encouraging that these are the issues folks are pointing to as a) it's stuff we were already planning to add in, b) accessibility advocacy is important and good to see in the industry, and c) they are straightforward fixes!"
It's refreshing to see such an immediate and direct response to player concerns—especially when it reads as more earnest than a standard corporate response—but it's an illustration of the fine line that developers walk when releasing a game in early access. Despite knowing that it's an early version of a game, players will only temper their expectations so much if they're paying to play it, and recovering from an early review plunge is a heavy lift when there are dozens of competing games releasing on Steam each day.
"We're working right now, immediately, on these fixes and will be pushing out performance / accessibility improvements ASAP," Heart Machine said, and from the looks of it, they're keeping to that commitment.
Updates incoming tomorrow Thursday 1/16!!! To include performance improvements, some critical bug fixes, and expanded options. More details coming in the patch notes but for now here's a 👀 peek at the new settings menu! pic.twitter.com/mSmGzUj9kzJanuary 16, 2025
Last night, the studio posted a screenshot showing an updated settings menu, announcing that they'd shortly be deploying a hotfix "performance improvements, critical bug fixes, and expanded options." According to Heart Machine, the first patch will arrive sometime today.
Hyper Light Breaker is available in early access on Steam.
