Hyper Scape Review

"Getting Crowned"

Multiplayer

August 12, 2020 at 7:08pm
By Jason Stettner

This is the latest free to play battle royale to enter the market. It’s Ubisoft’s effort at the genre, and certainly an interesting one at that. From a technical perspective, this is quite sleek and it runs perfectly well. It matchmakes quickly, and keeps the matches flowing at a fast pace. At the current point it is fairly barebones in terms of modes, but it focuses deep in regards to what it’s trying to provide.

You’re able to play either in threes, or solos. The lobby sizes are comprised of a hundred players battling it out to be the last ones standing. This experience is a tad different however, since the end game is largely focused on capturing this sort of crown ball.

Holding it for a minute grants a victory, and its pure mayhem when it gets to that point. You have folks frantically battling for that prize, while also fending off other teams or individual players depending on the mode that are also involved in the capture. It’s definitely interesting, and helps add a bit of a twist to the action. That’s really all there is to this one in the first season though.

It’s not too expansive, but that makes sense in regards to building up that user base at the launch. With seasons being present, expect expanding content over time and of course there’s a battle pass to work through which unlocks new cosmetics to use.

Gameplay

This is an incredibly sleek battle royale experience. It’s seriously smooth, features excellent performance and is aesthetically pleasing. There’s a neat architecture style as well, mixing what I believe to be an old French style with a futuristic cyberpunk beat to it. The general idea is that this battle takes place in virtual reality in the future. With it being a competition between various folks as they try to win glory out there on the virtual battlefield.

The buildings are also unique, with yellowish orange glass sparkling on the doors or windows so that you can enter. These are fairly standard multi-level offerings, with a number of other special structures being present as well. This includes a hip rave club of the future, a cathedral of sorts and even a fancy art locale. You’re able to easily dance along the roof tops since this has one smooth parkour system. It’s a treat to hop around at blistering speeds and blast each other away. I would have actually liked to also have wall running, that would have made sense as another movement option.

That being said, it does handle well and offers many jump pads to use in order to reach new heights. Well, those boosting pads and also lots of smaller objectives to clamber on. There are some gravity defying pads too. During the match you’ll also witness fun little modes pop up, events such as more jumping or low gravity to mix things up a tad further. Again, visually it’s quite impressive to look at and the performance is great from what I’ve seen. The combat could have used some slight aim assist on consoles, as it’s somewhat tough to really nail those shots. That might also be due to the high sensitivity, which I do suggest playing around with if needed. It might take some getting used to if not.

There are a good selection of weapons, and abilities present that you can pick-up. These are the pillars of combat. The abilities grant you cool skills, and like the weapons can be fused. The fusing process is taking duplicates you find and merging them in order to get a more powerful offering. It’s very effective, and smooth to handle. You’ll find these items in buildings, or off the bodies of competitors that you’ve eliminated.

I suppose I should mention this features drop pods instead of parachutes, but basically a similar way of entry to the map. Another change is that instead of an ominous gas cloud closing in, the map will deteriorate in a really cool way which pushes you inwards. When it comes to deaths, in threes you’ll be able to reach pads to be revived which can be quite cool. There are also emotes to use if you’d like. The game will feature cross-play down the road, but at the current point in time it does not.

Console Specific Notes
I did actually end up spending play time on both a base PS4 console and on the Xbox One X. The experience really was great on either platform. I will note that the base PS4 did have slightly more pop-in whereas the premium Xbox console did not have much at all.

The pop-in is generally not even visible on either platform which is nice. I rarely check out dual options, so it was nice to do so here. It features cross-progression too which was nice. Overall, I was very pleased with both versions and found them similar enough to not do specific separate Hyper Scape review articles. With that, it does not require PS Plus on the Playstation platform.

The Conclusion

Hyper Scale is an incredibly smooth, technical feat for the consoles that delivers a fast paced and exciting battle royale experience. It is a bit narrow in focus, but that works well for keeping the matchmaking fast and the players in a collected area.

I enjoyed the visuals, the style of the combat and how unique it was gameplay wise. It felt like what we know from the genre, while having its own distinct thing going on. It was blistering fast to move through the environments, and they had some fun abilities to unleashed during play.

It’s definitely a neat sort of experience, and an enjoyable one as well. I think there’s some solid potential for this one since it does perform so well while having new ideas for what the genre can do. It streamlines things, and I think that works out well for it.

Read our Call of Duty: Warzone Review
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Hyper Scape Review on Xbox One X

Rating Overall: 7.5