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When it debuted in the summer of 2020, Hyper Scape was set to shake up the landscape of established free-to-play battle royale titles as Ubisoft looked to carve out its own chunk of an increasingly saturated market. A little down the line, Ubisoft has just announced that its new kid on the block will be shutting down service on April 27, not even two years after the release of the game’s beta.
Despite praise for some well-designed maps and ambitious new takes of a genre that was quickly becoming crowded, Hyper Scape couldn’t overcome the limitations that plagued it since its lukewarm debut. Delving into the game’s varied critical reviews reveals consistent issues for which Ubisoft seemingly could find no effective remedy.
Hyper Scape’s Design Is Beautiful But Bland
A game’s setting and visual aesthetic play a huge part in dictating how well fans will initially react to it. This ended up being one of Hyper Scape’s most glaring issues. While the maps were considered to be interesting and the aesthetic tone adequately rendered, most critics were unconvinced that the Tron-inspired shooter had carved out a significant enough visual style to make it distinctive. For PSU’s Tommy Holloway, despite its “pristine, professional aesthetic,” Hyper Scape was “lacking in personality” and ended up “just feel(ing) bland,” suffering especially from a lack of “varied geography and weather effects that differentiate locations in other shooters.”
Uninspiring, too, was the game’s cast of generic characters. “The characters…are also quite bland,” bemoaned Holloway, “they’re devoid of personality and feel like empty vessels.” GameSpot’s Jordan Ramée
Weightless Combat Hindered Hyper Scape’s Growth
All other elements of gameplay aside, a battle royale game still requires engaging and well-made combat mechanics in order to feel tactile and engaging to players and ensure repeat play. Unfortunately for Hyper Scape, its combat ended up becoming one of its most pressing issues.
According to CJ Salcedo of GameCritics, Hyper Scape’s movement mechanics were “one of the strongest aspects, and being able to double-jump and zip along rooftops (was) wonderful.” Although there was a general consensus that Hyper Scape’s breakneck gameplay speed was a great asset, poor gunplay ended up undermining that good work. “Firearms don’t feel as good as the movement,” lamented Salcedo. “Gunfire has no weight to it, and shooting enemies never feels like it’s doing much damage.” Windows Central’s Zackery Cuevas echoed this sentiment, citing the combat as “floaty and weightless,” frustrated by the fact that “the guns never seem to pack the punch you’d expect them to.”
The game’s universal ammo system was further cause for concern. As PSU’s Holloway explained, “all ammo is universal, meaning you should never really have a problem running out, which actually removes a thrilling gameplay aspect of the battle royale experience – having to sometimes survive on minimal resources.”
Balancing Issues Alienated Critics and Players Alike
For any multiplayer shooter to be a success, regardless of the format, it must possess a balanced weapons system. Nothing causes ire and disillusionment quite like overpowered weaponry and perks undermining player enjoyment or rendering certain classes, items and/or playstyles obsolete.
Hyper Scape’s reputation as a title suffering from glaring balancing issues was a label it was never able to shift. Windows Central cited the “wonky weapon balancing” as one of the game’s main drawbacks, while GameCritics’ CJ Salcedo saw “balance as a problem – I found myself emptying entire clips from one gun into other players and saw them survive, only to be downed by a few shots from a different gun.”
GameSpot’s
Ultimately, Why Has Hyper Scape Failed?
Breaking into an already saturated market was always going to be a tall order, even for a studio with the sort of influence and resources boasted by Ubisoft. Hyper Scape’s biggest problem in connecting with audiences was that it simply didn’t differentiate itself enough from its competitors, ending up as a game that, according to GameCritics, didn’t do much “to stand out from other offerings on the market.” For PSU, Hyper Scape was sleek and smooth but ultimately felt like “an amalgamation of sci-fi properties that come before it” and suffered from a “vacuum of personality,” something that is “almost required to stand out in an already saturated market.”
In the end, Hyper Scape never quite overcame its own faults to overcome its competitors’ strengths. Games in competitive markets need a strong launch to oust more established titles, but Ubisoft’s venture failed to entice players away from beloved titans such as Fortnite and COD: Warzone. Hyper Scape was never bad; it simply didn’t offer enough to entice new players or cause significant defection from elsewhere in the market.
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