Heart Machine Is Ending Development Of Hyper Light Breaker Amid Layoffs

Heart Machine, the studio behind Hyper Light Drifter and Solar Ash, has announced that it is winding down the development of its Early Access title, Hyper Light Breaker. The news comes as the Los Angeles-based indie studio announces layoffs. 

In a statement posted to social media (and first reported by Game Developer), Heart Machine confirmed that it will end development of Hyper Light Breaker and that an unknown number of employees have been laid off. “As we wrap up our work on Hyper Light Breaker, we’ve had to make the difficult decision to part ways with a number of talented team members. This was not our ideal path, but rather the only one available given the circumstances,” reads the statement. 

Although it doesn’t delve into specifics, Heart Machine says this news “reflects broader forces beyond our control, including shifts in funding, corporate consolidation, and the uncertain environment many small studios like us are navigating today.” Heart Machine then pledges to continue making games as a smaller core team while supporting departing employees as best it can.  

Heart Machine then clarifies its plans to polish Hyper Light Breaker as much as possible before it ceases work on the game for good.  “We still have something coming in January. We plan to deliver something meaningful and as polished and complete as we can given our current circumstances. We’re doing our best to refine what we can, complete key systems, and have the game culminate in a satisfying punctuation point.”

While this seems to suggest Hyper Light Breaker will remain playable for those who bought it – and remains available to purchase as of publishing – it likely will not materialize into the final form the studio envisioned for it. Heart Machine also states it will not be releasing any more updates or hosting Q&As for the rest of the year, citing “limited resources with team members rolling off the project” as the reason. 

As for the studio’s upcoming 2D action game Possessor(s), Heart Machine confirms that its development has not been impacted and it will still launch on November 11. 

This news comes nine months after Hyper Light Breaker launched in Steam Early Access on January 14. Although set within the universe of its hit 2016 2D action title Hyper Light Drifter, Hyper Light Breaker was a 3D cooperative action roguelike. Despite a promising premise, it received a mixed reception at launch, with players criticizing its punishing difficulty and performance issues, among other complaints. 

Even after Heart Machine released several updates to address these problems, the game never seemed to fully catch on with players. Hyper Light Breaker’s previously “Mixed” Steam user reviews have since plummeted into “Mostly Negative” territory following this latest update.