Hyper Scape - Trailer

Hyper Scape is a free-to-play first-person shooter battle royale game developed by Ubisoft Montreal and published by Ubisoft for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. The game is notable for its integration with video game live streamers which allows viewers on Twitch to affect the outcome of a match.

The open beta for Microsoft Windows was released on July 12, 2020. The game was released on Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One on August 11, 2020. The game is available on the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S platforms via backwards compatibility. It received mixed reactions, with praise for its graphics, map design and deviations from the genre but criticism for its unbalanced gunplay and game mechanics. The game failed to meet expectations from players, with Ubisoft announcing that they would start overhauling the game's gameplay and systems.

Gameplay
The game's main mode shares elements with other battle royale games, where up to 100 players are dropped on to a map that slowly shrinks over time with players seeking to eliminate the competition. One main difference between Hyper Scape and other popular battle royale games is that in Hyper Scape, insteading of a circle shrinking as the game progresses, random sectors of the map disappear. The game however differs in that once the last sector closes, a crown appears, any player that is able to hold on to the crown for 60 seconds is automatically declared the winner. Alternatively, the game also ends when only one player or team remains.

Throughout the game, players can find both weapons as well as special abilities known as "Hacks," such as letting the player transform into a giant ball from which they can bounce around, or letting them become invisible. Players can only have two weapons and hacks available at a time, although each item can be swapped out during a round.

When a player is killed in the squad game mode, they become an "Echo". While Echos can't kill any opponents they are able to "ping" other members of their team to alert them to dangers or points of interest. When an enemy is killed, they drop a revive point which allows a team to respawn fallen teammates.

Throughout the match the AI host can modify the game world, including revealing every enemy on the game's minimap, giving weapons infinite ammo or turning on a low-gravity mode. Viewers watching the game on Twitch can vote, which will help the AI decide what modifications to turn on.

Like many games in the Battle Royale genre, Hyper Scape uses a tiered battle pass as a reward system for its players. Each season, there will be a battle pass with 100 tiers, each of them including at least one reward. The technical test had a free battlepass with 10 tiers, with 2 player skins at tier 10. The open beta had a 30 tier battle pass. Possible rewards include new champions along with player skins, weapon skins, melee weapons, deployment pods, emblems and sprays, none of which give the player any competitive advantage. Some battle pass rewards would require an Amazon Prime Gaming membership to claim those rewards.

In order to move up a tier on the battle pass, players need to gain 200 experience points. Those points can be obtained in many ways; completing daily and weekly challenges, performing well in games as well as watching and interacting with Twitch streamers will net you experience points. Ubisoft insists that playing the game is still the best way to rank up; players can only earn up to 400 experience points - or 2 tiers - per day, whereas there is no limit when actually playing the game.

Reception
The game received "mixed or average reviews" from critics according to review aggregator Metacritic. During the game's beta release, it was one of the most-viewed games on Twitch.tv, though it failed to maintain this momentum when the game was released in full in August. Ubisoft announced in October 2020 that the game had failed to meet the expectations from players and the company, and revealed that they would start overhauling the game's gameplay and systems.