- Ubisoft will shut down Hyper Scape’s servers on April 28
- The reason is the game’s low popularity
- The game did not become popular despite its unique gameplay features
Ubisoft’s short-lived battle royal Hyper Scape will shut down its servers in April due to dwindling popularity.
Ubisoft Pulls the Plug
Ever since PUBG took the gaming world by storm back in 2017, popularizing the battle royal shooter genre, many other games have tried to capitalize on the trend. Games like Fortnite have exploded and even taken the throne from PUBG over the years. Seeing the battle royal genre’s popularity probably made Ubisoft take the decision to invest in its own spin on the popular trend. In 2020, Ubisoft’s battle royal Hyper Scape was born.
Unfortunately for the game and its fans, Ubisoft recently announced they will be shutting the game’s servers on April 28th. The main reason for this decision is the fact that the game simply did not meet popularity expectations in an oversaturated battle royal market.
We have made the difficult decision to end development of Hyper Scape and shut the game down as of April 28th,” says Ubisoft in the official announcement. “To the Hyper Scape community, thank you for your passion and dedication to the world of Neo Arcadia both inside and outside of the game. Your devotion to the game we built will always be cherished.”
Forgotten despite Its Uniqueness
It is not fair to say Ubisoft didn’t at least try to make its game stand out amidst the now very large battle royal market. The company hoped that Hyper Scape’s unique mechanics would give players something fresh. For example, players could acquire Hacks, which would give them unique abilities.
One way players could win a game was to hold a crown. Even the eponymous shrinking circle, present in practically every major battle royal, acted differently in Hyper Scape Instead of the playable area shrinking, random parts of the map would disappear.
Hyper Scape initially had not a trivial amount of recognition. Thousands tuned in to the beta announcement on Twitch on July 12, 2020. However, this hype did not seem to carry over to the game’s full release on August 11. Ever since the game's popularity remained low and eventually Ubisoft decided to shut down its servers on April 28 this year.
Despite it not being a success on the market, Hyper Scape was a learning experience for Ubisoft. “We will be taking key learnings from this game into future products,” they wrote in the announcement. With established battle royal game devs, like Krafton, taking copyright infringement very seriously, any potential Ubisoft projects might have a difficult time.
