Ubisoft battle royale Hyper Scape is now open for everyone to try
Ubisoft's free-to-play battle royale FPS Hyper Scape today launched into open beta, after a short closed beta with invitations handed out on Twitch. As the genre goes, 100 players are running around a big map looting and shooting. Hyper Scape is pretty zippy as battle royales go, mind, with players bouncing from streets to rooftops and zipping about with special abilities. If you were curious but didn't want to watch Twitch in the hope of scooping a key, here you go.
It's the future, right, and you're playing a game in the Internet. But it's the Futureinternet, so there are more triangles. You can pick up 'Hack' abilities too, swapped in and out as you find new ones, things like a dash move, armour, and a heal. It does have upgrades for weapons and Hacks but you simply get a more powerful version - no fiddling with scopes and mags in inventory screens. Just fast, bouncy murder.
Folks are now invited to play the open beta for free through Uplay. I didn't want to sit on Twitch, hoping a key came my way, but might have a go now. To visit its city, if nothing else.
My architectural eye half-suspects Ubi are re-using some citybits from Assassin's Creed games for Hyper Scape. I hope they are. I've said before that it seems such a shame for so much work to be binned by the time the next sequel comes along. If it let's 'em get a different game up and running quicker, hey, great.
With the transition into open beta, Ubisoft also launched update 1.03. It added a new SMG, the Harpy, as well as a new hack, the AoE shove Shockwave. The Solo mode is now a permanent fixture, balance is fiddled with, the Low Gravity event will pop up less frequently... see the patch notes for more changes.
In recent weeks, numerous Ubisoft staff and studios have been accused of sexual harrassment, abuse, and discrimination by colleagues and members of the public. The company have vowed to investigate reports and to fix their culture. Another three executives resigned today in the wake of the allegations.
Correction: This article's headline originally called the game "Hyper Space". Look, I'm impressed I remembered as much as I did of a name that generic.
Whatever you call it, hit our E3 2020 tag for more from this summer's blast of gaming announcements, trailers, and miscellaneous marketing. Check out the PC games at the PlayStation 5 show, everything at the PC Gaming Show, and all the trailers from the Xbox showcase, for starters.