Hyper Light Breaker’s first gameplay trailer teases a beautiful, action-packed roguelike

Hyper Light Breaker, Heart Machine’s 3D action-adventure follow-up to indie hit Hyper Light Drifter, got a thrilling new gameplay trailer on Tuesday and a fall 2023 release window for early access availability on Steam.

Hyper Light Drifter is renowned for its challenging 2D action that smartly juggles melee and ranged combat, and Breaker looks like it will carry over that finely tuned action into a much more expansive experience. Unlike Drifter, which was a 2D game in a set game world, Breaker is a roguelike that takes place in both handcrafted and procedurally generated environments. However, like Drifter, you’ll be able to play Breaker with a friend.

Based on the trailer, the art design in Hyper Light Breaker looks awesome, with lots of vibrant colors and creative architecture. To me, it feels like a mix of Hyper Light Drifter’s mysterious environments and ruins with the types of alien worlds you might see in No Man’s Sky. The trailer is also giving me some The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild vibes, especially when the player character uses a paraglider to glide over to a dilapidated building.

Hyper Light Breaker’s fall early access window is a delay from the originally announced timetable of this spring. Still, it will add to what’s already likely going to be a great year for roguelikes; the new Castlevania-inspired Dead Cells expansion is excellent, and hopefully we get Hades II’s early access release this year, too.