How 2021 Could Be Huge For Hyper Scape

Hyper Scape’s 2020 - where do we begin? Things didn’t go so well for the much-anticipated Ubisoft Battle Royale, and since its full August release, has had a myriad of server problems, fan disappointment, and critical reviews. The player base and Twitch viewer numbers keep falling, and at such a rapid decline, what can Ubisoft do to bring the game back from a flatline?

When we spoke earlier this year about Hyper Scape perhaps being dead on arrival, our reasons were threefold – no crossplay, a copycat mechanic, and too much emphasis on Twitch integration (that turned out to be for nought). Now, a few months on, Ubisoft are indeed finding solutions for these problems, albeit, maybe a little too late.

On December 10, console crossplay was rolled out, probably to fix the paltry lobby numbers of most matches, and the match-making speeds have been relieved somewhat from this change already.

The biggest revamp however was the overhaul Hyper Scape developers recently revealed via Reddit, saying their team was “fully committed to the challenge” of “meeting the high expectations of our players”.

THE FIVE PILLARS OF CHANGE

After asking for honest fan feedback, Hyper Scape devs laid out their five-pronged attack for reviving their game on September 30, and Ubisoft outlined changes into combat comfort, onboarding, game modes, player goals, and crossplay. While the crossplay element has already been introduced, following on from the December game update, Team Deathmatch was also included – to many fans delights.

It’s a good start, and as the developers themselves stated, the overhaul isn’t over yet. But what else can Ubisoft do to really push their title back into the limelight?

MORE ENGAGING LTMS

The LTMs Hyper Scape has offered have been mediocre at best, with Faction War being the most recent. The idea was good in theory, but in practice, resulted in bugged servers and confusing gameplay.

Taking a leaf out of Fortnite or Apex Legends’ book may be a good idea – both games frequently offer new and interesting limited-time game modes, whether seasonal or otherwise. From Fortnite’s Operation Snowdown, to Apex Legends’ Fight or Fright, it seems like there’s a new LTM every week in the competing Battle Royale titles – and the player numbers rise too.

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FORGET TWITCH – LET'S MAKE IT AN ESPORT

Ubisoft clearly had a plan to take over the streaming market with Hyper Scape, as the on-board Twitch integration showed. While that didn’t quite go to plan, re-marketing Hyper Scape as a solo or team esport could be the way forward – there are plenty of poachable players from Apex Legends, Fortnite, or even VALORANT.

REVAMP WEAPONS AND HACKS

We’ve talked a little about how the guns available in Hyper Scape rang a little too true to the ones in Apex Legends (same goes for ‘hacks’ in VALORANT), and coming up with new and exciting weapons and abilities (and we do mean ‘new’) could be just the ticket out of Battle Royale purgatory. We’ve all seen shotguns and rocket launchers, how about thermal SMGs, or even explosive ARs?

Ubisoft have already begun to make the changes necessary to overhaul Hyper Scape; we just hope they turn out to be the right ones.
 

Images via Ubisoft