Hyper Light Breaker Interview – Heart Machine’s Michael Clark Talks Early Access Roadmap

Launched in Early Access last month, Heart Machine and Arc Games’ stylish co-op roguelike Hyper Light Breaker is already off to a good start.

Heart Machine Lead Producer Michael Clark (along with Community Manager + PR Manager Zhang) recently answered some of Gamers Heroes’ questions regarding Hyper Light Breaker’s Early Access period and roadmap – learn more with our interview.

Hyper Light Breaker Interview – Michael Clark Talks Early Access Roadmap

Gamers Heroes

We love how Hyper Light Breaker is taking in a bold new direction, with a third dimension, online co-op, and roguelike elements! It’s been a few weeks since Hyper Light Breaker’s launch in Early Access – how have you been working with fans in this period?

Michael Clark (Lead Producer):

“It’s been awesome!  We’ve received a ton of feedback and support, and it is heartwarming to see that even folks with constructive feedback are excited for how the game continues to evolve and see the potential in it.  We’ve had a few bugs that were reported by the community that we could not reproduce internally, and we’ve actually had some of those fans help us test fixes before we publish them.Overall we’re excited to continue to grow Breaker with the aid our our awesome community!”

Zhang (Community + PR Manager):

It’s been an absolute joy to work with our fans and players closely. Our community is extremely engaged, knowledgeable, and passionate about the games we make.

They have been with us every step of the journey to Early Access release, and have continued to show up for us in the past few weeks. They were with us the second of launch, hanging out in Discord with the team and sharing all of our nervous excitement. They’ve been patiently working with us through multiple updates, including responding to my “hey @here what version number are you seeing rn?” type pings on Discord.

They showed up at MAGfest, our first public showcase post-Early Access launch, and helped staff our booth. They participate actively in online contests, giveaways, and making fanart and mods – we’re even in the middle of a 2-week tabletop game jam that some folks set up!

Gamers Heroes

Hyper Light Breaker’s outpost is a one-stop shop for quests, upgrades, and the like. How are you looking to expand this hot spot throughout the Early Access period?

Michael Clark (Lead Producer):

“We’ll reveal more in the future, but expect that more of the shops will open up, and that there will be more characters and things to do as we move through early access.”

Gamers Heroes:

One of the things we appreciate about Hyper Light Breaker is its brutal difficulty each Cycle. What has been the general consensus regarding Hyper Light Breaker’s difficulty so far, and how are you looking to integrate that feedback throughout the Early Access period?

Michael Clark (Lead Producer):

“We’ve seen a lot of mixed feedback about how challenging the game is – our goal has always been to be a challenging game.  Challenging doesn’t mean “unfair” or “confusing” – and we are responding to the feedback that highlights things that feel unfair or confusing, but we will always want the game to be challenging.”

Gamers Heroes:

On that same note, after our experiences with Hyper Light Breaker’s co-op, we’ve hopped right into intense boss fights. One of the things we’d love to see is one flower to one medkit at the base. Will there be any other ways to get medkits in the future throughout Hyper Light Breaker’s Early Access period?

Michael Clark (Lead Producer):

“We’ll continue to experiment with how medkits work, how you gain more and how you refill them as we continue in Early Access.  We have some interesting changes in the works that will be ready to start sharing in March.”

Gamers Heroes:

In Hyper Light Breaker, death causes one to lose durability on one’s equipment. While we know that’s what the Extract functionality is for, we also learned the hard way that this doesn’t always happen in co-op. What does the future have in store for this system throughout Hyper Light Breaker’s Early Access period?

Michael Clark (Lead Producer):

“We’re looking at our durability system.  In early versions, we didn’t have durability – you just lost gear on death.  This was very punishing, but also ‘let us’ give the player more powerful gear, more regularly, since they were more likely to lose it.  This is one of the balancing elements we’re expecting to continue to tweak throughout Early Access until it feels right.”

Gamers Heroes:

Finally, we’d love to know more about the new characters, classes, and subclasses being added to Hyper Light Breaker throughout the Early Access period!

Michael Clark (Lead Producer):

“We’ve got a lot of plans – you’ll see lots of new content and features in our larger April update.  Some of those pieces might show up earlier than that – our February and March updates will have some things that our fans will be crowing about.”

Hyper Light Breaker is currently available in Steam Early Access. For those looking to join the conversation, be sure to join the official Discord channel.

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