How Progression Works in Hyper Light Breaker

Posted by By our-little-miss-is-home January 8, 2025 8 Views 6 Min Read
How Progression Works in Hyper Light Breaker



Heart Machine’s Hyper Light Breaker is the long-awaited sequel to 2016’s Hyper Light Drifter, but it trades the solo action-adventure experience of its predecessor for an ambitious open-world take on the action roguelike formula. That switch from a curated experience to a potentially infinitely replayable roguelike game led to brand new challenges for Heart Machine to overcome with Hyper Light Breaker‘s development. One of many challenges was how the game would handle progression, both within each run and across runs. Breaker‘s unique structure, as well as its blending of open-world gameplay within the context of the roguelike genre, lead to it having deep, multi-layered systems concerning its within-run and meta progression.

The core gameplay loop of Hyper Light Breaker is broken up into what the team calls “Cycles,” with each Cycle consisting of individual runs in a world where players attempt to eliminate three bosses. There are modular upgrades that players obtain and carry throughout each run in a Cycle, but also distinct systems that govern players’ permanent meta progression across each Cycle. When players defeat all three bosses or die, the cycle is reset and players must complete runs in a new world. Altogether, Hyper Light Breaker‘s overarching design and different progression systems incentivize repeat runs. Game Rant recently spoke with senior designer Ben Strickland and lead producer Michael Clark about how these progression systems work.

Hyper Light Breaker’s Different Progression Systems Explained

One of the main challenges facing Heart Machine during Hyper Light Breaker‘s development was balancing progression with difficulty, which naturally bears a learning curve for a studio making its first roguelike game. Determining which upgrades are permanent versus which are temporary, what players lose at the end of each run or full Cycle, and how to make each run feel quick enough for repeated attempts with meaningful progress influenced how Hyper Light Breaker would ultimately handle its progression systems. That, combined with its open-world structure, led to Breaker having four distinct systems at play that govern progression. But that only comes through iteration, with early versions of Hyper Light Breaker being more punishing. Discussing early versions of the game, Strickland said,

Earlier in the project, the game was very punishing; players would lose almost everything at the end of a run, or we would melt everything down at the end of a cycle…which can be discouraging! Eventually, we started folding in some elements that would allow gear and mods to persist for longer – introducing the concept of gear durability or the ability to stash gear in a vault.

Eventually, the team landed four different systems at play to help players get increasingly powerful from run to run (which may be expanded or changed throughout Early Access). These are:

  • The Vault: All collected gear
  • SyComs: Abilities and stats related to each class
  • Player.EXEs: Permanent upgrades that apply to each class
  • Vendor Relationships: unlocks deals, weapon upgrades, and other abilities

Strickland notes that there are still “modular” elements that players can expect to pick up in each run (such as weapons and mods for those weapons), but that figuring out how Breaker would handle meta-progression was something that the team went “back and forth on quite a bit.”

Clarifying what players can expect from the permanent progression in Hyper Light Breaker across each run and Cycle, lead producer Michael Clark explained each system as follows:

The Vault

There are four major progression systems that will have you powering up over your time – your vault, which is the gear you’re collecting – you’ll lose gear when you die, but amassing a vault of gear will keep you going into the next run with the power you need to succeed. You’ll find gear everywhere in Breaker – killing enemies, finding secrets, buying them from vendors, and looting chests.

SyComs

The second system are your SyComs – each character has multiple SyComs, which provide unique abilities and stats, and those stats are upgradeable – want more health, or want to hit harder with your Rail? That’s how you’ll do that. You upgrade your SyComs by spending Cores – rare items that are found throughout the world.

Player.EXEs

Next up are Player.EXEs – these are permanent upgrades that add new functionality to your Breaker – making your starting gear more powerful, letting you reflect projectiles with a parry, carry medkits, etc. These are unlocked with Golden Rations.

Vendor Relationships

Finally, you can also gift those Golden Rations to the various vendors and build your relationship with them – this will unlock deals, weapon upgrades, and other abilities with the vendors.

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