Hyper Scape, developed by Ubisoft Montréal, is a free-to-play battle royale that clearly takes inspiration from other titles in the genre. Your quest for victory takes place in the year 2054, in a futuristic megacity split into nine distinct districts.
Featuring Parisian-inspired level design at its core, the environment is so impressive you'd be forgiven for thinking you're playing an Assassin's Creed game. Whether you're playing on PC, Xbox One, or even PS4, drop right into Hyper Scape as a three-man squad and take on all challengers in your hunt for victory.
Is this new battle royale worth your time?
Competition is already fierce in this genre, with Call of Duty: Warzone, Fortnite, and Apex Legends to name a few.
As for Hyper Scape, this new game offers us a new way to experience the genre. All battle royales start off with a drop onto a map, kicking off a frantic search for loot within buildings, and Hyper Scape is no exception. It even features one of the larger maps in battle royales.
Players can get their hands on a wide arsenal of weapons. Whether it's the minigun, SMGs, shotguns, or even grenade launchers — you'll be able to find something to help you take over Megacity. We will say here that weapon balance still needs a lot of work — Ubisoft has to take a serious look at this issue before the full launch.
The dynamic environment and being able to build your character as you see fit, either through weapon choice or skills, makes Hyper Scape well worth checking out.
The map is very large in Hyper Scape, and is quite similar in that sense to Warzone. The main difference between to the two are the different jumping mechanics, which allows players in Hyper Scape to duke it out on the roofs of buildings as well as in the streets. This is complimented by double jumps, which add an element of increased verticality to the game.
The Zone — which usually comes in the form a storm, gas, smoke, or whatever the game decides on — works a non-conventional, random way to keep players on their toes and provide adrenaline raising gameplay.
It should also be noted that the game allows you to influence in-game events through an in-game vote, which is a great way of keeping players invested in their current game. This functionality has also been shown to have Twitch integration, allowing chat to have their say on in-game events.
Finally, Ubisoft is revolutionising the genre with a never-before-seen setting for a battle royale: a pristine Megacity. This is a conscious decision that welcomes you into a beautiful urban environment and moves away from the typical post-apocalyptic maps that often characterise the genre.
Echoes
Hyper Scape brings a lot of fresh new features to the battle royale genre, most notably with the Echo mechanic. The concept is simple, but remains rather innovative: when you die, you become a ghost that can move around the map and ping enemies to help your allies. Once an enemy that you've pinged is killed, the game will generation a resurrection platform that lets your living teammates bring you back to life.
Given that watching your teammates play whilst you're forced to wait for a respawn can often be an agonising experience, the Echo mechanic does a fantastic job of keeping this dynamic fresh and interesting.
Another new feature is being able to customise your combat skills on the fly in-game. Unlike Apex Legends, where each playable character has their own defined set of skills, in Hyper Scape, you're able to loot items that change up your character and let you change your character skills. These can be defensive, offensive, or even tactical. You can take your pick from AoE life regeneration, rapid teleportation, invincibility, and plenty others.
Finding new skills on the battlefield provides a great way of quickly changing the way you play the game. If you've played a lot of Warzone, acquiring skills through looting is surely nothing new. However, what distinguishes Hyper Scape from other battle royales is that these skills can be repeated reused at will and can even be improved if you happen to pick up a second instance of the skill item.
An Urban Jungle
These skills, also known as Hacks, truly allow you to play the game how you want, especially with a map design that rewards your newfound jumping abilities. Using your skills wisely, communicating with your teammates, getting the most out of echoes, and mastering the rooftops will make you a formidable opponent for any adversaries you come across. You can also pull off insane jukes by making the most of your environment and your skills.
Ultimately, Hyper Scape lets you play how you want to play.
If you hope to bring home a win, you'll have to always keep an eye on the rooftops and your enemies, as you can be susceptible to a well place skill at any time. When you're playing as an echo, you've got two main roles: reveal your enemies positions to your allies so they can take them out, then be revived. Just make sure you're more careful with your life the second time round.
Generally, the gameplay is dynamic at its core, and plays out across a rather large map that can accommodate plenty of teams. The fundamental mechanics — running, sliding, climbing, double jumping — bring a whole lot to the gameplay initially, and even more when mastered.
It should be noted that, like in most of these games, a meta way to play the game is likely to form shortly after release: it's therefore pretty likely that the community will figure out the best builds for starting off the match and for closing out wins.
More than meets the eye
In addition to a map that reflects the hard work put into it, especially on the buildings, you can also make your pick between several different characters. They each have their own backstory and different goals towards the Megacity. Ubisoft has already worked hard on fleshing out these characters to ensure that their lastest game isn't just a simple pretence for another battle royale. You can also customise your character through skins, lootboxes, emotes, and a variety of other things.
Hyper Scape isn't going to redifine the battle royale genre, but it does bring a wealth of innovative new features to the table. The echo mechanic is an interesting new idea that keeps players on their toes, even after they die, and it definitely incentives a more teamwork-focused approach.
Gameplay is very vertical, thanks to both the double-jump mechanic and a very well-implemented level design. Hyper Scape takes a very hands-off approach when it comes to building your character, with the skills that you come across as you play your match offering a completely different way to play the game than before.
This is all complimented by a wide arsenal of crowdpleasing weapons, some of which, such as grenade launchers, wouldn't look too out of place in DOOM. The only real gripe we had at this stage was that there's a long way to go when it comes to weapon balance.
To conclude, the free-to-play model is sure to attract a whole load of players, whether they're trying out a battle royale for the first time, or seasoned veterans looking for a new take on the genre.
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