Why Hyper Light Breaker Can’t Break Away From Illness as a Theme

Posted by By our-little-miss-is-home January 9, 2025 3 Views 7 Min Read
Why Hyper Light Breaker Can't Break Away From Illness as a Theme

Hyper Light Drifter is a story about dying. It’s more than just that – there is beauty, and connection, and a hope for the future that the Drifter is able to bring about despite his inevitable fate. It is a story inspired by one man’s reality of living with illness that resonated with thousands of players who have experienced something similar in their own lives.

The next game set in the same universe, Hyper Light Breaker, will tell an original story focused on a more concrete and external foe whose desire for conquest threatens the entire world. Despite the narrative shfit, Hyper Light Breaker should still continue to examine the impact illness has on individuals throughout the world.

The Disease May No Longer Be Central, But Its Effects May Linger

Heart Machine has described Hyper Light Breaker as neither a sequel nor a prequel to Drifter, but a drastically different story taking place in the same world. However, producer Michael Clark did say “the Drifter’s experience takes place much later than Hyper Light Breaker.” This means that the Drifter’s destruction of the Perfect Immortal Cell and defeat of Judgment have not yet occurred – the Disease could still be around and ravaging the population. It is possible (although not confirmed) that the player will meet other characters affected by the Disease in the Cursed Outpost, the game’s hub area.

It has not yet been revealed if the Abyss King and his Crowns have any connection to the Disease as Judgment did in Hyper Light Drifter. The team was able to confirm that the game is more social, with a larger focus on playing together with friends and bonding with the various inhabitants of the Outpost. If there are characters who are struggling with a terminal illness like the Drifter, they will not have to face it on their own. The hope the Drifter represents may yet be far in the future, but nobody in Breaker’s world is suffering alone.

Hyper Light Breaker’s Handling Of The Illness Theme May Be Different From Drifter’s

Hyper Light Drifter was a deeply personal story to Heart Machine founder Alx Preston, who has been open about how his heart condition has affected his life and served as a source of inspiration for the Drifter’s own illness. The developers at Heart Machine did not discuss in detail how this theme will be handled in Hyper Light Breaker, but lead producer Michael Clark did confirm it is an ever-potent theme of the franchise:

“I don’t believe we could remove illness as a theme from Hyper Light.”

It will be fascinating to see how Hyper Light Breaker approaches illness differently than the previous title. For one, attitudes toward disease have changed since Drifter’s release. In 2016, Alx Preston’s experience was far less universal than it is today; now, players who have lived through the COVID-19 pandemic can understand chronic illness and its life-altering effects in a way they previously could not.

In addition, there has been a trend of popular games exploring living with potentially life-threatening illnesses as a theme. Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth provides a heartbreakingly realistic look at Kazuma Kiryu’s life post-cancer diagnosis, while Baldur’s Gate 3’s party pursuing every possible avenue to cure themselves of their mind flayer tadpole infection is intimately familiar to anyone living with a condition that could end their lives at any moment. It remains to be seen how Hyper Light Breaker will add to this discussion, but the team has stated that the theme of illness is and will remain crucial to the game’s world.

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