Last year Ubisoft revealed and released their first free-to-play IP Hyper Scape. Hyper Scape was meant to be a battle royale with some unique features like players can still roam around the map after dying and fusion of weapons, etc. But mostly it was just another battle royale, or that is what people thought, including me. But after several updates and an ongoing 3rd season, I thought of giving Hyper Scape a second shot and in this review, I will give my honest, unbiased opinion!

GAMEPLAY

The game has two modes as of the time of this review: Crown Rush (solo or squad) and Team Death Match (TDM). Crown Rush is basically battle royale but instead of the classic “last man standing”, a random crown spawns randomly in the game which you have to grab and take hold of for 1 minute. It’s kinda like fall guys tail tag mode infused with fall mountain. The game also has collectible abilities which randomly spawn on the map along with other weapons. Any two weapons or abilities are fusible; i.e. if you have a weapon/ability equipped and you find an identical one lying on the ground you can fuse them to increase the stats. In Squad Mode, even if you die you can still roam around the map and help your teammates find the enemy. There are also respawn points where you can go from dead to living (squad). In Solo Mode, after dying, you can respawn 2 times. You won’t respawn at a particular point but rather dropped from the sky, similar to the one at the start of the match. There is no classic airplane that throws the players on the map, instead there are just a bunch of pods been thrown randomly from the sky.

TDM in this game is a really good mode. Most of the features are the same as battle royale such as collectible abilities and infusing weapons etc. It is a really fast-paced mode and you need to develop a skill cap to compete in the game. The first team to get either 50 kills or the highest number of kills in 10 mins win. Will recommend the whole game just for how high paced this mode is. Personal best TDM I have played in ages

ARTSTYLE AND AUDIO

Art Style in this is very modern and abstract. I have a feeling it tries to follow the cartoon-like style of Farcry 3. Everything has a futuristic touch to it. Facial animations are classic Ubisoft grade ugly but I didn’t care much because they don’t come up often. The weapon skins are mostly and look flat. Character models are very limited and there aren’t many variations. Most of the emblems in-game are basically some edited version of icons similar to other content creators.

Audio in this game is the biggest meh. The OST is a pain to hear, goddamn just disable it. Other audio like walking, weapon audio, and others are direct recycles from other Ubisoft titles.

THE GOOD

Some good things I liked about Hyper Scape:

• Some new concepts like the infusion of identical weapons and abilities and then the after death system in Squad Crown Rush and in Solo
• The variety of unique abilities that can be found. One of the ability lets you be a giant ball so you can just ball away in the middle of a fight
• Ubisoft’s constant support to the game in form of updates and free skins they give daily
• The random events which happen between match for example low gravity event through which you will be experiencing low gravity resulting in higher jumps. An event lasts usually 30 seconds.
• The idea of throwing a pod from mid-air rather than an airplane to drop onto the map.

THE BAD

Some things I do not like about Hyper Scape:

• The audio (reason explained in audio section)
• There is only one map in the game and it feels like an assassin’s creed map crapped and reskinned
• Lack of weapon arsenal compared to other competitors
• Hackers and, Oh Boy, a lot of ’em. The reporting system is so bad that innocent pros get banned for 3 days while hackers cheat casually. However, since season 3, the rate of hackers has been dropped
• Ubisoft advertising the game as a battle royale when it clearly has more potential in the TDM genre
• Game is currently on lifeline meaning if you want to play Solo Crown Rush the queuing time will be long and the best you can expect is 15 players (don’t worry the map gets smaller if the number of players is less)
• Ubisoft Connect

IN CONCLUSION

If you have some spare hours to spend then Hyper Scape is not a bad go to. The TDM mode could be really fun, The battle royale has something new offer. Though the game gets repetetive after some time its enjoyable and also it is free!

A Futuristic battle royale with a lot of potential and in need of fan base which could become really fun if Ubisoft more effort onto it and work on community demands.

Good game , worth a shot!