Hyper Light Breaker early access review: a flashy but hollow roguelike with few of Drifter’s charms

There’s a lot you can do with a third dimension. Texture. Nativity dioramas. Spheres. Hyper Light Breaker, in expanding from the 2D action of Hyper Light Drifter, chooses to almost entirely remake itself as a free-roaming roguelike, trading post-apocalyptic pixel art for big proc-gen vistas and even more acrobatic swordplay.

Its technical ambition, sadly, ends up undermined by the emptiness of its world, the lack of exploratory pleasure that Drifter nurtured so well, and combat that’s more faithful to the original yet doesn’t quite adapt well enough to 3D. Not to mention it has more than its fair share of early access bugs and, especially in the early stages, balancing missteps.

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