Hyper Light Breaker gets a community-driven update that makes 'some pretty big changes' to the game's enemies and medkit system, following its debut to mixed reviews on Steam

pcgamer.com:

Hyper Light Breaker, Heart Machine's 3D follow-up to moody action-adventure Hyper Light Drifter, smashed into Steam early access earlier this month. But the initial response to it has been less than stellar, with players complaining about specific issues like frame rate drops, lack of keybinding, and problems with the parry system, while generally being divided over its unforgiving combat and lack of in-game direction.

All of this has led to Hyper Light Breaker garnering a mixed reception on Steam. But developer Heart Machine has taken these criticisms in stride, responding last week that it accepted the «risk of negative early reviews» and agreed many of the community's complaints are «extremely reasonable». It also promised to address the problems as quickly as it could.

After issuing a quick hotfix last week, Heart Machine has now released a second, more substantial update that targets several of the community's biggest bugbears, some of which have been worked through with the assistance of said community. «We made Hyper Light Breaker with Early Access in mind to have it grow and evolve with our community,» wrote lead producer Michael Clark in the update's accompanying Steam post. «Today's patch represents that as we made some pretty big changes».

Primarily, the hotfix patches up Hyper Light Breaker's medkits. Following the game's launch, many players complained it was far too stingy when dishing out health items. This hotfix makes several changes to in-game healthcare, firstly ensuring players now start off with a medkit. In addition, medkits now «auto-refill on launch of run, up to max capacity». So, if you upgrade your medkit capacity beyond one, you'll start a new run with the upgraded number of medkits in your inventory. Alongside medkits, the update adjusts how harvestable medigems are used and consumed, which all appear to be geared toward ensuring maintaining your health bar is a little easier.

While healing is the hotfix's main concern, the update also