Hyper Scape is a newly-announced free-to-play game from Ubisoft, introduced during this week's Ubisoft Forward. It is currently in open beta on PC, with PlayStation 4 and Xbox One versions coming sometime this Summer, though no release date was given. At its core, Hyper Scape is a first-person shooter battle royale game set in a futuristic VR simulation, and while this isn't ground-breaking by any means given the current popularity of the genre, there's more to this world than meets the eye.
What really sells Hyper Scape is its story. In this world, by 2053, humanity has transitioned into a dystopian future where 10 billion people are living confined lives in suffocating mega cities. The world went astray 30 years prior after series of climate disasters, overpopulation and rampant invasions of privacy transformed the world.
Even with the Earth in crisis, humanity still made significant progress in terms of technology. It managed to land astronaut families on Mars, construct prosthetic hands for widespread consumer use and create dynamic thinking robots. However, there were some missteps in technology too, as farm animals were subjected to VR and pizza delivery drones unceremoniously dropped their precious cargo on the unforgiving pavement.
With reality so bleak and depressing, people sought an escape. This came in the form of the "Hyper Scape," a virtual reality created by a company named PRISMA. Hyper Scape seems to be a hyper-evolved version of Second Life where people are free to do and be what they want. One of the big draws of Hyper Scape is "Crown Rush," a battle royale in which 99 players fight each other to obtain a crown. The trailer didn't really divulge any specifics, but it seems that upon collecting the crown, said player will have their life changed for the better.
However, not all is well. Rumors of people getting hurt in real-life and users mysteriously disappearing hints at something more sinister behind the virtual reality that is Hyper Scape. It's likely that PRISMA is not the gilded benefactors of the world they make themselves out to be. The trailers did not reveal any true or ulterior motivations, so it's still up to speculation. Perhaps PRISMA is dealing in human experimentation or mind control.
Regardless, it is up to the users of Hyper Scape to solve the mystery of what's going on with Crown Rush before it's too late. Players can work solo or within a team to overcome any obstacles and reach out for the truth in an uncertain future. While we still don't know that much about Hyper Scape's story, it seems to draw heavy influences from popular media like Sword Art Online and Ready Player One. While the concept of a VR world in a dystopian society is far from original, there's still a lot Ubisoft could do the shake up the formula and create something truly special with Hyper Scape.