Ubisoft's Forgotten Multiplayer 'Hyper Scape' To Shut Down, 18 Months After Launch

When you think of battle royale games, what are the first that come to mind? It’s become quite a crowded genre within the past few years, with popular ones like Fortnite (which I’m just now realising released in 2017, good lord) and Apex Legends certainly helping to drive hype. 

Regardless, I’m willing to bet that Ubisoft’s own venture, Hyper Scape, wasn’t your first thought. And it seems it’s not been the thought of, well, basically anyone in the year and a half since its release, because they’re already killing it off. That didn’t take long.

If this is the first you're hearing about this game (or you've just straight up forgotten everything), be sure to check out the trailer below.

“We have made the difficult decision to end development of Hyper Scape and shut the game down as of April 28th. We set out to create a vertical, close-quarters, and fast-paced shooter experience and we are extremely grateful to our community for joining us on our journey,” Ubisoft wrote in a statement published yesterday. “We will be taking key learnings from this game into future products. 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.”

It’s actually quite a pity, because some of the ideas behind the game were genuinely pretty good. Ubisoft partnered with Twitch to incorporate a ‘Crowncast extension’, which essentially allows Twitch viewers to vote on in-game events. This means viewers can give players different benefits, like speed boosts, for a short time. Streamers can also invite viewers into their game squad easily through the extension. Basically, there’s a lot of viewer interaction elements already incorporated into the game, which in theory would make it an ideal candidate to be popular on Twitch. Clearly, that didn’t exactly land, though. 

There’s not really a reliable way to figure out Hyper Scape’s current player numbers, but they can’t be anything worth writing home about for Ubisoft to close up shop so quickly. If you want to give it a go, you’ve got three months today. Have fun?