Less than two years since Hyper Scape first launched, Ubisoft announced that they are shutting down its servers this April.
Hyper Scape was initially developed as a way to create “gaming as a spectacle”. This was based on the fact that more and more streamers were watching games as much as they were playing them. As a result, the idea was to involve viewers more in the outcome of the game. With new ideas including allowing Twitch viewers to vote on which mods should be applied to a given level, the idea held a solid concept. The game’s Creative Director, Jean-Christophe Guyot, spoke in an interview with Dualshockers about the title and their original plans for it:
“We wanted to bring streamers, players, and viewers together into one thing that we dub the ‘game as a spectacle.’ From there, we wanted to create the most intense, the most amazing and fun spectacle. […] We wanted to make sure that while it feels familiar in a lot of ways, it’s also new and fresh in other ways.
Jean-Christophe Guyot ~ Dualshockers Interview 2021
These new ideas could have gone a long way to reviving an otherwise quite stale and overcrowded genre. However, the overall game was still viewed as relatively generic within the battle royale format. Upon release, Hyper Scape received somewhat mixed reviews and a lukewarm reception (although our own review here at The Game Crater scored it a solid 9/10).
When Are The Hyper Scape Servers Shutting Down?
Unfortunately, Ubisoft has confirmed on January 27th that they will be shutting down the servers on April 27, 2022. However, despite the failure of the game, Ubisoft has promised in their press release to take away “key learnings” from this game’s development to use on other projects. Here’s hoping that their next battle royale will be a success.