Destructoid Checkpoint: The Broken Heart Machines

It is tempting at times to turn away from many of the damaging changes in the games industry in recent years, from acquisitions to subsequent game cancellations and layoffs, and stare lovingly at indie developers. All those wonderful little games and their cute little antagonists can lull you into a false sense of security, that the indie scene is always there, and always churning out winners.

This year alone has seen a slew of fantastic indie titles hitting the market, lighting gamers’ imaginations on fire, and racking up both critical and financial success. Games like Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, Hollow Knight: Silksong, Blue Prince, Hades 2, The Alters, Citizen Sleeper 2, and Megabonk have all been absolutely bangers. And those are frankly just the best-known indie games I could come up with.

It’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking that things might be hard for AAA developers and studios, but the green grass of the indie scene gives everyone the ability to take their ideas and just succeed. Sadly, this is not always the case, and I am reminded of that by watching some of my favorite developers in the indie space taking their lumps this week. 

The beat that my heart skipped

Hyper Light Drifter is one of my favorite indie games ever. It came to me at the right time, and resonated for the same reason that Alx Preston, the founder of Heart Machine, was driven to make it. An ever-present health condition that affected his heart gave him reason to want to create a protagonist who seemed to be slowly dying from the inside out, and my own health issues gave me reason to want to explore that same thing. 

It helped, of course, that the game was tightly designed, created with beautiful pixel art and modern shaders, slathered in strange, barely explained esotericism and lush soundscapes. It offered secrets and emotionally tangible rewards for exploring those secrets. It offered risk, and challenge, and a looming doom that could not necessarily be fought, but merely considered, shaped like clay beneath the fingers of your mind until it fit within your head. 

Hyper Light Drifter was so good because it trusted the audience to engage in an honest and emotional way with what it was trying to do. 

It was, at one and the same time, a game that demanded a sequel, but one that would be difficult to follow up on. We had danced with the spectre of death, we had considered our place among the vastness of the cosmos, and the echoes of our actions, good and bad, as they skitter across the memories of the living long after we are dead. What else is there to do?

Hyper Light Drifter never got a sequel, and from the outside looking in, it felt like Heart Machine never managed to find the same level of success again. Solar Ash is a fun title, but Hyper Light Breaker has mixed reviews on Steam for a reason: the open-world roguelite formula fails to find the same fertile soul in the minds and hearts of the original’s fans. 

Sadly, this week Heart Machine announced that they would be making layoffs. The studio had already had to say goodbye to some staff at the end of last year, and was relying on Hyper Light Breaker to land well and bring stability. Unfortunately, “broader forces” beyond the control of the studio now mean they have to let yet more folks go, although they do hope to release a solid update for Hyper Light Breaker in January of next year.

It’s a huge shame to see the studio behind one of my favorite games of all time going through the ringer like this, but I sincerely thank them for the memories.

The rhythm of the beat

Another sad end to a studio occurred this week as The Outsiders, the studio behind the silly and fun Metal Hellsinger, saw Funcom layoffs end their 10 years of game production. Metal Hellsinger really is summed up by the words silly and fun, a rhythm game combined with the vibe of classic Doom, where you rocked your way through crowds of demons by engaging in the Devil’s own heavy metal music.

It was super fun, and I think I feel especially saddened as it impacted David Goldfarb, a man whose work I have admired for some time, and who penned some of my favorite Battlefield campaigns during the Bad Company days. I wish the team there had managed to get their next game to market, as I was curious to see what they would do next. 

Ultimately, I think I am feeling the reality that no level of the industry is safe, from indie teams to smaller studios with publisher support to large, AAA enterprises. The squeeze is coming for everyone right now, and there is little to be done but watch and see what happens, and support the companies that are doing the work we enjoy. 

You’d never know the impact your dollar can have when combined with the dollars of others, to keep teams afloat and livelihoods intact, so never underestimate the value in that. Even more than that, though, I would ask you to take a moment to send a message to the people who have done work that inspires you. It sometimes feels like the internet is used only to focus on things that we dislike. 

Unfortunately, it feels as if more value is being placed on our negative reactions to things than our positive ones, as if our primary function should be to judge instead of to enjoy. We can counter that too, with a little bit of kindness and some words of thanks to those who invested their time, effort, and energies into making the things that bring us joy.

What’s happening, Destructoid?

Andrej Barovic is excited about Riot’s upcoming tag-team brawler, but he thinks it has one major flaw. - “It’s immensely satisfying in its combat, with each hit visceral and flashy, while connecting combos is much easier and more intuitive than the average FGC experience. Each of the characters feels fresh, with the roster generally varied. With the 2v2 format, there’s a lot of synergy between each pair of characters, leading to a massive skill ceiling that’ll reward the most talented and dedicated of players.”

Bhernardo Viana is struggling to figure out the whaling nature of the modern-day games industry. “I can’t help but wonder who the whales are who spend thousands on microtransactions and keep these titles free-to-play. In my head, these big spenders are rich tech bros or really bored middle-aged politicians. Turns out that regular people like me and you are also whales, but in another market.”

Scott Duwe has found that progress toward the thing a playerbase wants can also be a stark reminder of how late that fix is to arrive. - “For the past five years or so, CoD players like me have been complaining about how skill-based match making (SBMM) punishes players for performing well, matching players up against unimaginably sweaty competition after having any modicum of success.”

And that’s it for this week, folks. Stay gold.