REVIEW: ‘Hyper Scape’ Has Some Growing to Do (PS4)

Another battle royale hits the gaming world: Hyper Scape! Developed by Ubisoft Montreal and published by Ubisoft, Hyper Scape is a free-to-play, first-person shooter battle royale that is available on PS4, Xbox One, and PC. The game itself has a bit of a storyline behind it, unlike some other battle royales. Hyper Scape is set in 2054 in a metaverse known as Hyper Scape created by the company Prisma Dimensions. If you’ve ever watched or read Ready Player One, Hyper Scape likens to the augmented utopia of the OASIS. Within this metaverse, players battle each other in first-person combat in a sport known as Crown Rush in the virtual city Neo-Arcadia.

According to the intro sequence, there are glitches occurring in Hyper Scape, and there are hints at something bigger and potentially malicious going on in the metaverse. Some people may participate for the sole purpose of searching for a way to elevate themselves in Crown Rush, but the game suggests that some players may absorb themselves in finding the secrets behind Hyper Scape, some may try to get out of Hyper Scape altogether, and some may go against everything expected of them and find their own path through this augmented reality.

In this way, Hyper Scape hints at some interesting cyberpunk elements. But, unfortunately, once you get into the game proper, these elements are washed away and the game becomes nothing more than a battle royale hosting up to 100 players at a time. Perhaps future seasons will interweave these elements into the game beyond the interesting starting cinematic but for now, Hyper Scape has a lackluster story. Then again, there is rarely a story to follow in other battle royales so perhaps the introductory cinematic just got my hopes up for nothing.

For now, there are two game modes for Crown Rush, solo and squads which are self-explanatory. The two game modes share a similar objective: eliminate all your opponents. However, to diversify things, there is another mode coming soon and the hub where you can interact with the in-game marketplace, see announcements, and look through the battle pass has extra sections where it seems like new content could be added. It’s very likely Ubisoft will be adding new elements to this game in the future, as they should for this type of game.

Hyper Scape is a pretty typical battle royale. Players drop into a map that is pre-populated with weapons and hacks to pick up. Hacks consist of defensive, offensive, and movement capabilities that the game considers glitches in the metaverse. Players can pick up two hacks at once and these allow them to turn invisible, become invincible for a few seconds, turn into a ball, project a wall in front of them, or a number of other quirky capabilities.

In typical fashion, as the game progresses the map becomes smaller and smaller. However, random sections of the map become off-limits rather than using the usual shrinking-circle scheme that other battle royale games use. Players, upon dying in squads, turn into Echos. In this state, they can freely move about the map but can’t attack other players. What they can do is ping enemies and points of interest to their teammates. When an enemy is killed, they produce a revive point where Echoed players can spawn back in with help from their teammates.

The only other element that separates this game from other battle royales is that once all but one section of the map disappears, a crown appears. If a player can capture the crown and hold it for 45 seconds, then they are declared the winner. However, another shot at winning is if all but one player or team is eliminated.

The biggest downfall for this game currently is variability. Although there is a diversity of characters to pick from, weapons to scavenge, and hacks to collect, there is very little variability in the weapons players actually use. There are a couple of weapons that everyone seems to go for because they not only inflict high damage but also have high rates of fire. But where most games would make these sorts of weapons harder to find, Hyper Scape makes them prolific. Because of this, certain weapons are rendered useless. This also applies to the hacks most people pick up.

For example, the sniper is relatively powerful but slow firing. However, where other games make a headshot an instant kill or at least damaging enough to make it worth using, Hyper Scape fails remarkably. With the fact that players can double jump and many hacks increase mobility, it’s pretty much impossible to get a headshot with a sniper let alone two headshots to actually kill another player. Although the map allows for some very good vantage points to take over, the chaotic movements result in a futile effort to snipe unless you manage to upgrade the sniper to full capacity.

Because of this, fights often play out the same way each encounter you have. To top this off, the map is not the most interesting. There are a few major buildings that stand out in Neo-Arcadia and sections have slightly different themes, but all the smaller buildings have similar inside layouts. Overall, these elements combine to produce a sterile, unappealing game that feels too repetitive.

An upside to this game is that it’s currently cross-progression, allowing gamers to use one account to play on PS4, Xbox One, and PC so that their player and battle pass levels remain consistent on all platforms. We’re likely to also see cross-platform play in the future but there’s no knowing when just yet.

There are a few elements that separate this battle royale from others but the battles tend to be repetitive, the weapons lackluster, and the map becomes stale quickly. Currently, with how Hyper Scape is structured, there’s little to keep me entertained. There is potential to make this game shine, but the game has some growing yet to do. Until Ubisoft adds more to Hyper Scape, I probably won’t be investing much more time into it.

Hyper Scape is available now on PS4, Xbox One, and PC.