Ubisoft battle royale Hyper Scape shutting down after less than two years

Hyper Scape was to be Ubisoft’s big break into the battle royale scene. Ever since its admittedly successful Twitch debut in July 2020, however, the game seemed to drop out of headlines faster than it entered them.

Now, not even two years after its official launch in August, Ubisoft is shutting Hyper Scape down on April 28, which at this point feels more like a mercy.

A short message on the game’s website doesn’t provide a specific reason behind the decision, only saying ‘We have made the difficult decision to end development of Hyper Scape and shut the game down as of April 28.

‘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. 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.’

While it hasn’t said it, Ubisoft’s reasoning is pretty obvious: it’s clearly not making enough money to justify its existence.

You may have thought that the game had already been abandoned considering, unlike other free-to-play battle royales, every new season of content seemed to arrive with almost no fanfare.

New seasons of Fortnite and Apex Legends always generate headlines for adding new characters, mechanics, modes, and/or map changes. Hyper Scape had two more seasons following its launch and only dedicated fans of the game probably knew about them.

Considering Hyper Scape’s own Twitter account went completely quiet after June 2021, until this announcement, the writing has been on the wall for a while now.

Whether or not Ubisoft will take another crack at the battle royale genre remains to be seen. Probably not since it’s currently pushing NFTs as its newest money making scheme.