I think that Hyper Light Drifter probably released at just the right time. Indie games were really carving out their own corner of the industry back then, in 2016, and it was truly a year with some (comparatively) massive titles – Firewatch, The Witness, Inside, Cuphead, Enter the Gungeon, Darkest Dungeon, and even Stardew Valley. It could be argued that 2016 was the year of the indie game, now that I think about it! In the couple years before we had some equally beloved titles like Her Story, Undertale, Downwell, Soma, Octodad, and Shovel Knight.
A big common denominator here that you’ll quickly see is that unlike a lot of indie games these days, all the ones I’ve mentioned here are much more singular experiences. Stardew Valley obviously has co-op, but everything else is generally designed to be played solo, a stark difference to the proliferation of attempts at small-scale live-service titles, roguelikes, and other such games designed to be played forever.
Looking back at all these games, and Hyper Light Drifter in particular, all now roughly a decade old, I can’t help but feel like its surprising follow-up, Hyper Light Breaker, shows how much can change in a decade. The thing that really sold a lot of people on Drifter back when it was a Kickstarter was its combination of modern pixel art, evocative synthy soundtrack, and intriguing world. The final game delivered on those three traits, delivering a game whose narrative you have to figure out for yourself.
The real focus is on its combat and world-building, unburdened by the state the games industry is currently in. Every day you can hop onto Steam and see so many developers try their hand at being the next big thing, and very rarely are they self-contained experiences. Multiplayer is massive now, live-service is the defacto in a lot of cases (even though it rarely works), and, holy mackerel, are there so many roguelikes these days. That last one, I really can’t blame anyone for – when times are so tough and people don’t have as much money at the moment, of course you want to design something that can be replayed ad infinitum, otherwise you might just lose out on sales. Only the bigger name indie teams (who might not really be indie anymore) can afford to make single-player, JRPG-inspired or Zelda-inspired titles.
In turn, I can’t really blame Heart Machine for deciding to take the world it established in Drifter and turn it into a roguelike, one I presume will have some live-service elements to keep players coming back once it’s out of early access. Right now, it’s hard to figure out if that was the right call. Early access really does mean early, with only the core loop in place currently. Drifter’s challenging combat has been pretty well realised into 3D, though I’m sure it’ll get some improvements over the course of a few updates.
There’s also similarities to be drawn with the upcoming FromSoftware title Elden Ring: Nightreign, also a roguelike with procedurally generated maps that tasks you with taking down fearsome bosses, so Heart Machine is in good company there. Ironically, though, Nightreign also highlights how different the industry is compared to a decade ago.
Does it make me sad? Yeah, a little. There are still developers making games like Drifter and all the other indies I mentioned at the start, I wouldn’t even say there’s less of them, if anything there’s more than ever. That’s part of the problem too, there’s just no room for them in a sea of games that have a higher chance of surviving thanks to their replayability, not to mention how much harder discoverability is these days.
It’s no surprise the industry has changed this much in a decade, I just think it took Breaker to make me realise just how much is different now. I’m not trying to necessarily make a judgement call here, mostly, I really hope it works out for Heart Machine, because there could be something pretty special there, if the early access kinks are worked out.