Gamers die gecharmeerd waren van Hyper Light Breaker zouden eigenlijk al lang al van de game hebben mogen genieten. Er stond namelijk een early access-versie gepland voor de lente van 2022. Deze versie is daarna verschillende keren uitgesteld en nu is de ‘release window’ weer naar achteren geschoven.
Heart Machine-oprichter Alx Preston laat via Steam weten dat het team wat meer tijd nodig heeft om het spel te polijsten. Zij willen niet een product aan de man brengen waar ze zelf nog niet helemaal tevreden over zijn, ook al gaat het om een early access. Het team krijgt hiervoor genoeg tijd, zodat het niet ten koste gaat van hun gezondheid. De early access-versie van Hyper Light Breaker staat nu gepland voor begin 2025.
De volledige statement is als volgt:
We’re so grateful to all the members of the community who have expressed ongoing support and enthusiasm for Hyper Light Breaker’s Steam Early Access launch. After much evaluation and many conversations with our publisher Arc Games, we’ve decided that we need just a little more time to get the gameplay experience polished to our standards.
Therefore, we’re now looking at an Early Access launch date of very early next year.
We don’t want to ship a project, even in Early Access, that we’re not satisfied with on a number of fronts. Especially in the current state of the industry, we need to put as good a foot forward as we can.
As always, we believe in maintaining a sustainable pace of development for our team, which means taking care of the mental and physical health needs of everyone first, rather than burning the team out trying to hit a specific set launch date. This will enable the team to offer better, more responsive support to community feedback during the Early Access period itself.
Trust that we REALLY want to put Breaker out there, and see people engage with a game that we’ve all worked so hard on. However, we also REALLY need to make sure that the core foundational units of the game are as strong as they can be, so that we can build on them during the Early Access period. In the meantime, we are confirmed to be showing Breaker at multiple events to get your feedback as we continue getting Breaker ready for Early Access launch! We’ll have a demo of Breaker at PlayNYC + AnimeNYC in New York City, XOXO in Portland, and Media Indie Exchange in Seattle. We’re also currently planning additional public demos at DreamHack in Atlanta and MAGFest in Maryland. So, if you absolutely can’t wait to get your hands on the game when it launches in Early Access, you can at least catch us out in the wild at these events and give us feedback on how the game is shaping up so far!
Thank you everyone for your continued support of our games and the people who make them.