Developer Heart Machine has shared a first gameplay trailer for Hyper Light Breaker – its fully 3D rogue-lite follow-up to 2016’s acclaimed Hyper Light Drifter – alongside the news it’ll be entering Steam early access some time this autumn.
Hyper Light Breaker, which was unveiled last March, trades its predecessor’s wonderfully explorable top-down, 2D world in favour of a “vast, ever-changing” 3D landscape – blending handcrafted and procedurally generated elements – known as the Overgrowth.
Here, amid open biomes and deep labyrinths, players (working solo or with up to three friends) can deploy a mix of acrobatic abilities – wall-dashing, hoverboarding, gliding – and third-person combat as they take on monsters and bosses in an attempt to overthrow the Abyss King.
Given Hyper Light Breaker’s swerve into rogue-lite territory, it’s a goal that’ll require repeated attempts, players nudging ever-closer to victory as they unlock new weapons and items by playing, as well as new characters and permanent upgrades for their settlement between runs.