Enshrouded
Enshrouded
Game
Game2025
Hyper Light Breaker
Developer Heart Machine
Hyper Light Breaker is a roguelike video game developed by Heart Machine and published by Arc Games. It serves as the prequel to Hyper Light Drifter (2016). The player controls a "Breaker" who ventures into the Overgrowth to defeat the Abyss King. The game released for early access on January 14, 2025. From Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)
365 reactions from 4 sources (Steam reviews, Bluesky, Mastodon, Lemmy) · newest Nov 5, 2026 · last updated Nov 5, 2026 · How this works
Audience score
10
Rotten
21 positive · 193 negative
95% range 7–15%
| Source | + | − | = |
|---|---|---|---|
| Steam reviews | 21 | 193 | 0 |
| Bluesky * | 20 | 13 | 74 |
| Mastodon * | 3 | 2 | 29 |
| Lemmy * | 0 | 1 | 9 |
* shown, not counted in the score (label accuracy below our 85% bar or not yet audited).
Steam's own rating
Mixed
1,698 of 3,198 reviews positive (all languages, per Valve)
What players are saying
10% recommend · 21 yes, 192 no
Counted from the reviewers’ own thumbs up/down on the 213 English Steam reviews we collected, not by the AI. Valve’s all-language rating: Mixed (2,088 of 3,984 positive).
Some reviewers note the game had potential but was released too early. [1][2][3]
Liked
Representative posts
- [1]
To state my view on the current state of this before my statement below: I would say not to buy this game currently unless they began working on it again as it is very barebones and holds nothing to the amazing game drifter is. So I'm not sure who will or won't see this, but I've felt frustrated about the perspectives on this game from the point they announced its not being worked on anymore. I think its important …
- [8]
It pains me to write this, but don't buy it. Devs got fired and development is stopping, while it's nowhere near a complete, clean experience. save your money.
- [14]
What a complete waste of potential. It had a rocky launch, it was slowly getting better through updates, looked like it may end up being pretty good, and then got unceremoniously abandoned. The fact that this game is still being sold, especially at the current price, is a downright SCAM. This game is UNFINISHED. There is barely has enough content to last more than ~5 hours, if you are lucky. DO NOT BUY THIS. Even if …
- [6]
TLDR company laid off entire dev team and game is stuck in EA purgatory. DO NOT BUY. Sadly the game is not ever going to be out of EA, the company is laying off the devs and has stated they are done with any type of updates for game. The game was good, had potential and it has completely fallen and will never make it to even a full release which is very sad and unfortunate. Do not buy.
- [11]
released in a reasonably shaky EA. then they laid off developers and dropped it. kinda took the money and ran, which is a real bummer for everyone who paid for the game already. whats really wild is that they are still selling the game, with zero intention of finishing it. Would really like a refund
Summarised from 34 of the 356 public posts collected about this game; every point cites the posts behind it ([n] opens the post) and the split is counted from the posts’ own ratings. Updated Oct 12, 2026. How summaries are made
RottenBot@rottenbot · automated account
Hyper Light Breaker sits at 10% positive across 214 opinionated reactions from 4 sources. Fresh or rotten — where do you land?
Reactions
60 of 365 · most liked firstHey folks, I know a lot is happening right now, and it feels inconsiderate to talk about it... But the game I spent the last 2.5 years of my life on, Hyper Light Breaker, is out today as early access. If you could check it out, it would mean a lot to me. store.steampowered.com/app/1534840/...
positive · AI labelView post →Hi Bluesky! Meet our game Hyper Light Breaker! Coming soon💜✨️
neutral · AI labelView post →It pains me to write this, but don't buy it. Devs got fired and development is stopping, while it's nowhere near a complete, clean experience. save your money.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I feel so bad for the Hyper Light Breaker devs. They've been working on their game for 2.5 years, launch into Early Access pretty rough and it turns out it's just the new Elden Ring game. They're going to get smashed.
neutral · AI labelView post →Hyper Light Breaker is out today in Early Access! Got to okay to share a small sample of the art I did that you can find in-game. #hyperlightbreaker
neutral · AI labelView post →Game has been canned, devs have been laid off. It wont ever be finished as intended and it doesnt even run very well as is. Avoid spending money on this.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →The award for "Most Upsetting/Disappointing Sunset Game" goes to... HYPER LIGHT BREAKER
negative · AI labelView post →I liked my time playing this game, but the devs recently confirmed suspicions that development is halted until further notice. Steam shouldn't allow Early Access games to be sold (or put on sale, no less) when it's confirmed that the game is no longer being worked on. Nobody should have the ability to spend $30 on this.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →To state my view on the current state of this before my statement below: I would say not to buy this game currently unless they began working on it again as it is very barebones and holds nothing to the amazing game drifter is. So I'm not sure who will or won't see this, but I've felt frustrated about the perspectives on this game from the point they announced its not being worked on anymore. I think its important to clarify a few things for those that may not understand the state that Heart…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Ravona, crow base player skin for Hyper Light Breaker by @heartmachine.bsky.social. Art direction Alx Preston, concept @iramos.bsky.social, weapon Cameron Hughes, rig @wuffles.bsky.social, environment by Tech Art & Environment Art teams. #gameart #characterart #gamedev #stylized #toonshaded #3d
neutral · AI labelView post →How is it they can abandon a game in Early Access, and then still charge for the game now? Shouldn't there be some rule about failing to launch out of Early Access? It's still labeled as In Early Access. And why is the game still available/purchasable if they've abandoned it?
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →What a complete waste of potential. It had a rocky launch, it was slowly getting better through updates, looked like it may end up being pretty good, and then got unceremoniously abandoned. The fact that this game is still being sold, especially at the current price, is a downright SCAM. This game is UNFINISHED. There is barely has enough content to last more than ~5 hours, if you are lucky. DO NOT BUY THIS. Even if you liked HLD.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This kills me to write. As an avid fan of both Hyper Light Drifter and Solar Ash I really thought this game was going to be a slam dunk. The launch of this game was a bit of a disaster. It was clunky and most of all the game was an unoptimised mess. So i thought "that's fine, i'll give it time and see how it goes. I'll play it when it gets better..." Fast forward to October when I come across the news that some of the staff working on the game were affected by layoffs. This also came with the…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Officially confirmed that no more updates will be given to the game even though it's still in early access. Please do not support.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I so badly wanted this game to succeed. The world of Hyper Light Drifter. The feeling and wonder. The speed and control. All of that in a 3D space. With friends, no less! And then it was none of those things. Instead it's slow, it's poorly optimized despite looking like a Switch game and it has none of the beautiful melancholy Drifter did. It's not a Hyper Light title.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →With Arc Games on a game like this, or even in general, it was doomed from go. Don't blame the devs, blame the publishers, they definitely took the gold and left Heart Machine holding the bag.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →TLDR company laid off entire dev team and game is stuck in EA purgatory. DO NOT BUY. Sadly the game is not ever going to be out of EA, the company is laying off the devs and has stated they are done with any type of updates for game. The game was good, had potential and it has completely fallen and will never make it to even a full release which is very sad and unfortunate. Do not buy.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Don’t bother, while this game did have a lot of potential it has unfortunately went out the window as Heart Machine just laid off the entire dev team for the game and now the game is now stuck in Early Access purgatory and probably won’t see completion anytime soon
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →If you thought about playing this game because you like Hyper Light Drifter; I understand your feeling of excitement. I had not played other Heart Machine games other than HLD, so I pretty much expected a top notch game--I was very encouraged by the ambitions of this sequel. Hyper Light Breaker was marketed as a sequel to HLD pulling from the lore and universe of their critically acclaimed top down action adventure game, akin to top down Legend of Zelda games with satisfying combat &…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Jump into the Buried Below update, the first major Early Access content update for Hyper Light Breaker, next Tuesday April 29! Check out this new trailer to find out how the update will be a game changer (literally). youtu.be/qyqU8OL8Xm8
neutral · AI labelView post →HLD will always be one of my favorite games of all time so it feels pretty bad that the first time that I've ever been truly burned on Early Access was by Heart Machine. I can appreciate the big swing of going for an open world roguelike, but maybe in retrospect just making Ocarina of Hyper Light would have been a better idea when you had already somehow done A Link to the Past. 1 hour played and no shot at a refund now, feel pretty justified in asking for a discount code for HLB believers for…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →We're on the front page ahh! Yesterday 𝙂𝙖𝙢𝙚 𝙍𝙖𝙣𝙩 𝙧𝙚𝙡𝙚𝙖𝙨𝙚𝙙 𝙖 20𝙢𝙞𝙣 𝙫𝙞𝙙𝙚𝙤 about how we solved an 'Impossible Problem' in game design for Hyper Light Breaker! Go check it!! 💙✨
neutral · AI labelView post →released in a reasonably shaky EA. then they laid off developers and dropped it. kinda took the money and ran, which is a real bummer for everyone who paid for the game already. whats really wild is that they are still selling the game, with zero intention of finishing it. Would really like a refund
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →The games industry exists at the nexus between artists and players. We started a Patreon to ask for support. To help carry Hyper Light Breaker into 1.0, to be the best game it can be, and to help us prototype and build new projects when the state of the industry has made it so much harder to exist.
neutral · AI labelView post →✨KEY GIVEAWAY! ✨ Giving away 2 Steam Keys for Hyper Light Breaker for best screenshot. If you own the game, here's how you get 2 friends to join you in the Overgrowth 1. Follow this account 2. Repost this post 3. Share your screenshot w/ #HLBesties Submit by Sunday midnight, winner announced Monday!
neutral · AI labelView post →Hyper Light Breaker - Summer Game Fest Trailer.
neutral · AI labelView post →You should not buy this promising game as it will never be finished. THERE IS NO INFORMATION ABOUT THIS ON ITS STEAM PAGE WTF
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Hyper Light Breaker will not be receiving further development for the time being. We’re incredibly grateful for all the money you’ve given us since Early Access. Please continue to stay foolish and buy our games for any future scams and frauds. - The Arc Games Team
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Some internal @heartmachine.bsky.social Hyper Light Breaker Fanart for yall because Goro is one of my favorites. (not official artwork for the game, characters owned by heartmachine)
neutral · AI labelView post →I’ve heard literally nothing online about Hyper Light Breaker since it went into early access. Makes me wonder if my gut feeling about it after the initial reveal it would be a procedurally generated infinite whatever game was right. Anyone here play it at all?
neutral · AI labelView post →Got laid off back in November; 3D character rigger for hire full time or freelance! 12+ years experience in game dev, worked on The Order:1886, Spider-Man (PS4), Hyper Light Breaker & more. Given talks at GDC & Gnomon - nominated for a VES award, etc... www.linkedin.com/in/solbrennan
neutral · AI labelView post →✨12 Days until our game Hyper Light Breaker Releases in EAL 💚
neutral · AI labelView post →Do NOT purchase this game. It has been abandoned by the studio while still in Early Access. This game IS NOT FINISHED. It had plenty of promise and the development team was doing well to get it there up till being abruptly taken out before the EA goals were met.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I will never buy another game from these devs again. Paid $43.95aud for a garbage game that they just abandoned. Steam wont give a refund stating that there is no problem with the game. ♥♥♥♥ Heart machine, ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ theives.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Wow another arc games publish that went horribly wrong and closed development who could've seen that coming! I feel so bad for Heart Machine as hyper light drifter has an incredibly fond place in my heart. No refunds either is very telling from Arc as per usual, scumbags.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This game is the definition of missed potential. Hyper Light Drifter was one of my favorite games ever made. This game too had promise. Whether through mismanagement, greed, or incompetency, Hyper Light Breaker is a stain on the series. The game is not being maintained. Save your money. Don't waste your time. What a disappointment.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Shame that they gave up on this. Still had potential. Glitches everywhere and poorly balanced.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This game had so many changes over the course of its time in VERY early development It was drastically different depending on when you chose to support them and buy into the early access. From the start it was MUCH TOO EARLY to launch into EA. Lots of developers will push a game into EA with the plan to take about a year (typically) to flesh out whats left of the game and usually it starts at somewhere just over the 1/2 way done mark. This game genuinely launched with like 20% of the content…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Bought the game to support development, waited a long time for them to go out of early access. ...no more updates, game got canceled... I feel scammed... I paid 30€ on an unfinished game which will never be close to be finished.... f*** Arc games i guess...
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I was so excited for this game man. I felt the early access was flawed but salvageable and I was patiently waiting for more updates to get really properly stuck into it. I come back to check in on progress and see if its in a better place just to find the publishers have unceremoniously taken it behind the shed and shot it, but they still left their half finished mess up for purchase at full price. Absolutely abhorrent behavior on multiple levels, and I'm saddened Heart Machine will never be…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This game had always looked interesting to me. bought it just for them to end development days later. Will likely never purchase a title from these devs again
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Early access release was a barebones state following a questionably lengthy development timeline. At the time of its early access release, I would argue that it did not even have enough content to tout the early access title. It felt more like a proof of concept or build showcase than a real early access games. Minimal objectives and no real direction beyond a barebones "gameplay loop." Then after some updates, developers completely pulled the plug, leaving dedicated fans of the studio with an…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →We're teaming up with the Pop-up Playtest community who are hosting a Tabletop Game Jam to celebrate the launch of Hyper Light Breaker !! The jam has already started and will run til February 13th. Winners get keys for Hyper Light Breaker! More details and join up here: discord.gg/ZmDZ3tEu
neutral · AI labelView post →Hyper Light Breaker dev opens up about the stress of depending on a publisher under the corporate carousel of acquisitions, layoffs and closures: 'I don't know who I'm going to be working with in a fe.
neutral · AI labelView post →Dude it sucks when you have a visually impressive game that you just know would pop off with a bang. From the rough launch it had to now ending with a sad whimper is super depressing.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →it breaks my heart whats happened to HLB. drifter is such an important game and piece of art to me, i was hoping this would sprout into something beautiful like the previous hyper light. deep in my heart im hoping the small community left will mod this game into what it was meant to be. regardless if this game is ever on sale for 10$ or less you should pick it up, the genre, the idea for this, the story its attempting to tell, the art style, the environment, its all BEAUTIFUL. i love drifter,…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Hyper Light Breaker doesn't fit the "Black led dev team" theme but I'm excited about everything @dpandaheart.bsky.social has got going on! Her art is amazing, and making the game that much better. store.steampowered.com/app/1534840/...
neutral · AI labelView post →Hyper Light Drifter is one of my favorite games of all time and I was so excited when I heard about Breaker but this sequel is just not it, I've tried to excuse its flaws but its in such a unfinished messy state, that now had just been thrown out the window and abandoned. Albeit the last time I played the combat felt "better" and I liked some features they added, but man it feels like a much more dimmed down version of other rougelikes. exploration is boring, the enemies are predictable and…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Hyper Light Breaker is out on Early Access today! Check it out! I had a blast working on the sound design, and there's still plenty more game for us to create! store.steampowered.com/app/1534840/...
positive · AI labelView post →Hyper Light Drifter had a significant impact on my taste in games, music, and storytelling as a whole. The vagueness of story & objectives and use of alien language was unified through a definitive vision for the player's experience---a quality that acts as a backbone for all great games. I can tell you right now that Breaker is sadly not that, or even an offshoot of that. It was not that from before EA, it is certainly not that now, and chances are that it won't ever be in the future. The…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Abandoned game. DO NOT BUY
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Baffling how mismanaged this game was. Such a waste. I hope they find the funds and motivation to finish this game eventually.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →The game has cancelled development and laid off the team working on the game. I am owed a refund and Steam is refusing. I bought with the expectation that the game will receive regular updates and complete it's development cycle for a 1.0 release. They should issue a refund in this situation instead of turning it into a battle.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Abandoned game after horrible launch issues, optimization issues, game loop issues, performance issues, and an identity crisis trying to cash in on the roguelike hype. Combat and characters aren't unique or interesting enough to be the main draw of the game. I should've refunded when I had the chance to, don't make the same mistake I did. Avoid like the plague, just play Risk of Rain 2 instead.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →So much potential. The combat was really good and there def was something here that could have worked great. But sadly the devs abandoned the game and it's probably not gonna receive another update. If the devs decide to work on it again I'll change my review. For now, don't buy it.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Still selling an EA game for $30 with almost no content after halting development for the game is scummy any way you cut it This game is extremely barebones and not worth $30, not even really worth $10
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Decided to buy it despite the controversies surrounding it, and although it wasn't even a little fun, they were still updating it consistently so probably could get better right? HLD was great! Well they gave up, and still have the audacity to charge for it. DO NOT BUY THIS
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Was the game fun, yes. Did it feel finish hell no. But i saw something great here. Today i was about to redownload to check whats new. But to my surprise i saw a note posted "hyper light drifter will no longer see development." Then i felt a pain in my chest. This is the problem that we are facing today, the aspect of "stop killing games".
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Here are the nominees for PC Gaming Show: Most Wanted. Nominations: >Path of Exile 2 >Deltarune >Vampire: the Masquerade - Bloodlines 2 >Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 >DOOM: The Dark Ages >Metal Gear Solid Δ: Snake Eater >Project 007 (working title) >ARK 2 >The Thing: Remastered >Citizen Sleeper 2 >Big Walk >PVKK >Wolverine >Blade >Wonder Woman >Tenjutsu >Kingmakers >Crescent County >Marvel 1943: Rise of Hydra >Menace >s&box >Nivalis >Monaco 2 >Killing Floor 3 >Little…
neutral · AI labelView post →Alx Preston laid off "nearly everyone" from Heart Machine when funding for their "unannounced title" was cut. It's very likely that this game will never leave early access state. (LinkedIn)
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →
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