Hyper Scape is Ubisoft’s addition to the battle royale genre. It was released for open beta on 12 July 2020 on PC with Xbox One and PS4 releasing at a later date. Developed by Ubisoft Montreal, it’s one of the first games to have Twitch integration whereby viewers can affect the match by voting for events to occur during gameplay.
Check out the Hyper Scape trailer here.
The background story is reminiscent of the book/movie Ready Player One, where people in the future escape into a virtual reality, in this case called Hyper Scape. There, up to a 100 players can compete in Crown Rush solo or in squads of 3 to claim the Crown and hold on to it for 30 seconds or just kill everyone else until you or your squad are the sole survivor.
Boot the beta for the first time and you’re treated to a trailer with an overview of the game before being plonked into the tutorial zone. Here you’re able to try out all the weapons and hacks, which are special abilities you can use like invisibility, teleportation or turning yourself into a giant metal bouncing ball. Most of the weapons are your standard FPS fare like SMGs, shotguns, snipers and assault rifles. There are a few interesting weapons though such as the Skybreaker which is an energy weapon that shoots an electric ball at the enemy or the beginner sidearm, D-Tap, which auto targets for you. Finding multiple copies of the weapons or hacks will allow you to upgrade it by fusing which will increase magazine size or lower cooldowns. At the fully fused stage, weapons will get increased damage while hacks will be more powerful like double healing speed for the heal hack. You can only carry 2 weapons and 2 hacks at any time, so try to get what works best for you before you start fusing. It’s unfortunate that once you leave this tutorial zone, there doesn’t seem to be a way to get back as it’s useful to be able to experiment with different weapon setups. Hopefully there will be some form of testing/training area in the game when it finally releases.
Once you get into the game proper, you’ll start out in the Hyper Scape Hub. This is basically the hub area for things like the marketplace where you can get cosmetic items for your champion or check out your battle pass progress. The locker is where you can customise your cosmetic looks on weapons, change emotes and select your champion avatar. Speaking of avatars, there are currently 8 with different looks to unlock through the battle pass and Twitch. It was a pleasant surprise to see some South East Asian representation in the form of Noor Azimah, the champion from Malaysia.
In the squad Crown Rush, you’ll be grouped with 2 other players, similar to Apex Legends. If you die, you’ll come back as a “ghost” and need to find a restore point for your teammates to resurrect you. In solo, well if you die, you die.
Similar to other battle royales, the map will progressively shrink by having sectors disintegrate, forcing players to engage each other. The sectors are populated with generic 2 to 4 storey buildings where you can find loot within. Doors and windows are blocked by shields which you can shoot or melee to break.This also helps you to identify if another player has been in the building.To break the monotony of the generic buildings there are some landmarks around like Throne Hall or Archives. The names for these are in orange so you can easily identify them and they typically contain more loot for you to pick up.
Gameplay is fast paced as with most contemporary FPSs, although there’s an emphasis on verticality. Higher ground is generally more advantageous in a gunfight and there’s lots of ways to take the battle to the rooftops. Everyone can double jump and some events even give a third jump or low gravity, allowing you to jump higher. There are also various jump pads around the map to send you soaring up. Some engagements take place in the streets or buildings and can be quite intense.With that in mind, having 1 long/mid range weapon and 1 close range weapon is a decent setup to take into battle.
Overall, the beta feels quite polished. Having played for over 6 hours, we did not encounter any major issues. It also feels pretty much like any of the other battle royale games out there with its only defining trait being the Twitch integration encouraging viewer participation however, as it’s beta, we can expect more things to be added in. All in all, it’s recommended to give the game a shot if you’re a fan of the genre.
For more on Hyper Scape, click here.
Review done by Gene Yeo.
