Hyper Scape, Ubisoft's new free-to-play battle royale, is now something you can immediately play on PC. After announcement a little over a week ago, Hyper Scape gathered interest due to its urban setting, and effects that change the map and game rules as you play. A trailer, and the open beta announcement, were previewed today at Ubisoft Forward. The trailer has a lot going on, but the emphasis is definitely on run-and-gun combat.
In the trailer we see players dynamically grab new abilities, called "hacks", and use them to gain the upper hand in combat. There's also a lot of verticality, with players bouncing from ground to roof and back again in the span of a few seconds. Hyper Scape is a streamlined take on the genre, with auto-regenerating health and gun upgrades done by simply picking up another copy of the gun you already have.
Ubisoft also included a cinematic trailer about the game's world, one where the virtual reality of Hyper Scape is used as an escape from the grim reality of everyday life. That virtual life, though, holds darker secrets. Not sure how that's different from today's world, but whatever.
Our Morgan Park wondered if Hyper Scape is too simple to stay fun, and I guess we'll find out now that the masses are playing it, rather than just a handful of streamers. Our Emma Matthews, on the other hand, found that once you familiarize yourself with the game's pace its streamlined design focuses on what makes battle royale good: "Ubisoft has found a way to strip back the busy exchanges between allies to focus on the one thing that actually matters: finding and eliminating other teams," she said in her preview.
You can enter the open beta and download the game at the official website. You can read all of our Hyper Scape coverage to date right here.
Ubisoft has recently been embroiled in a storm of controversy over allegations of an abusive, hostile workplace. Ubisoft did not directly address those allegations in today's livestream, but a highly placed Ubisoft Canada executive and the company's chief creative did resign in the past few days.
