Hyper Light Drifter was Heart Machine's first game, and it did a great job of hitting all the right notes. The story may have been too mysterious due to a lack of language beyond the essentials, while the gameplay was a tight mix of careful combat from a top-down viewpoint. While many people would've expected a sequel to pop up right away, that never came about. Instead, we get Hyper Light Breaker, a game that isn't necessarily a sequel, but a title set in the first game's overall world. As a title in Steam Early Access, it becomes clear right away why the developers have chosen to release the title this way instead of going for a full release.

You play the role of a Breaker, a person in charge of going out into the Overgrowth. While it is unclear whether this game takes place before or after the events of Hyper Light Drifter, what is certain is that you need to take care of the Abyss King. To do that, you need to find and take care of their Crowns first.

Unlike the first game, this is a roguelike, and it contains the same general traits that the genre is known for: big procedurally generated levels, a sense of loss when you die, and randomization when it comes to enemies, gear and weapons. There are also a few changes to set apart this experience. The first is the presence of lives. You get four lives per run, and while losing a life means a degradation of your equipment, it doesn't erase the world or your overall progress. Only when you lose all of your lives do you get a complete reset. You also get to progress through the world in any order you wish, as this is a procedurally generated open world instead of a linear one, so the chances of seeing anything get repeated are much smaller than in other roguelikes.

The most interesting thing about this gameplay loop is the twist that it uses. During a run, you can find a warp point to send yourself back to your base to stash all of your goods or buy new items and upgrades. In short, the game takes on the properties of an extraction shooter, and it changes up the roguelike approach. Instead of going all out at all times, you can now play the game more carefully, stashing away any good equipment you find if you feel that your run isn't going so well. The game becomes more strategic, as you can give yourself a better chance at a subsequent run instead of relying on luck. It's an interesting twist that makes it different from its peers.

Initially, the combat seems like it has some variety. You have a melee attack and a firearm at your disposal, and each weapon drastically changes how you go about each fight. Look a bit deeper, and you realize that you're going to be dependent on using your melee attacks almost all of the time. No matter which gun you use, the damage output feels minimal, and the scant amount of available ammo means that you're only going to use firearms when you remember that you have them.

Hyper Light Breaker is in Early Access, so there's still work to be done. The game displays some big things that need addressing soon, aside from the fact that it is lacking some bosses, which are currently behind "Under Construction" screens. The first has to do with load times, which can feel excessively long once you die. You have to see the animation for each of your boons and tools degrade one by one. You then have to watch your lives dwindle by, and you'll see a schematic of your person before you finally return to your base to try again. You have to surmise that this is a loading screen since you can't skip these sequences, but there's no indication that loading is occurring, and that's a major annoyance.

The reason that it can become so annoying is because the game isn't balanced correctly yet. You'll be OK if you're playing with two other people because the game knows how to make things fair. Mobs can be spread out, so everyone can join in the fray. Boss fights can be easier to handle, since you can have everyone split their focus between the boss and the mobs without getting overwhelmed. That isn't the case if you're playing solo, as the game isn't rebalanced to handle one player taking on everything. Enemies still hit hard, and without too many abilities at your disposal early on, you'll need to depend on dumb luck or get very adept very quickly to survive the initial runs. It'll get fixed later on, but for those who enjoy solo play versus co-op, this is a big strike against the title.

Hyper Light Breaker also veers away from one thing that people loved about the first game: exploration. The procedurally generated worlds are pretty to look at and seem fascinating to explore, but the game currently seems more interested in getting into skirmishes. There's always some kind of alert that drives foes your way, so there's rarely a quiet moment when you can roam around in relative peace. Even if you manage to carve out a quick minute to do that, the game doesn't seem interested in making you look for good loot; it leaves boons and weapons in the open for you to pick up. There's still a thrill of finding good stuff, but it would've felt better if you had to put some effort into discovering it in a secret area.

There is a bit of good news in that improvements are already being addressed. Since the game's release in Steam Early Access, there have been two patches that have addressed some of the more serious issues from launch. The developers have been very open about what they're trying to address, and it's promising that this was all done within the game's first month.

As far as presentation goes, Hyper Light Breaker looks good even in this early stage. The move to the third-person viewpoint produces some character models that look distinct, while also retaining the somewhat lanky style from the first game. The animations are slick, and the particle effects look great without overwhelming the scene. The environments look nice, especially since there are a few different biomes, but your base looks the most enticing since it looks busy and lived in instead of being in ruins. There are no voices in the game, but the music is fine if unremarkable, and the sound effects are good enough.

Even in its Early Access form, Hyper Light Breaker is quite playable on the Steam Deck. The game hits the device's native 1280x800 resolution. Performance is good and hits in the neighborhood of 40fps most of the time. Battery life is where some optimization is needed, as you'll get roughly 90 minutes from a full charge, and there are barely any options present that could help you squeeze more gametime from the game before you need to plug in the adapter to the Deck.

In its current state, Hyper Light Breaker can only garner a slight recommendation if you're playing with friends. The lack of balancing beyond this configuration means that those who play solo will struggle far more often than expected. This then makes the lengthy load times for respawning more difficult to get through. The slower gameplay progression loop makes the game feel very limiting in the opening moments, and the constant sense of danger conflicts with the procedurally generated world. The constant patching shows that the developers aren't going to be leaving this title in Steam Early Access limbo. Be sure to keep tabs on Hyper Light Breaker, which is expected to be completed sometime in 2026.