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Hyper Scape, Ubisoft's frenetic take on battle royale, is now streaming on Twitch

Double jumps and melting cities

After a week of mysterious tweets and a fake company website, Ubisoft have entered the battle royale ring with Hyper Scape. A "Technical Test" for the surprise BR landed in the hands of select streamers earlier today, with half a million viewers already tuning in to have a gander at Ubi's hectic urban battlefield - and to get their hands on the closed test themselves by way of Twitch drops.

See, Hyper Scape is employing what we in the biz call "doing a Valorant". Publishers Ubisoft have wrangled up a number of "founders" to stream the game on Twitch. By tuning in, you're putting yourself up for the chance of grabbing early entry into Hyper Scape's arena. While it's only been streaming for a few hours, what I'm seeing so far seems neat - a hectic run-and-gun-and-survive 'em up through the virtual streets of slightly-European sci-fi city New Arcadia.

Making itself known via streaming also gives us a good look at the game's Twitch integration features. Every so often, viewers will get the chance to vote on events for the current match - be it revealing all remaining players on the map or saddling everyone up with infinite ammo. At one point the game cranked down the gravity, sending the streamer I was watching rocketing into orbit. Good to know they're happy to get silly with these.

It's also interesting to see one of these take place entirely within a multilayered urban sprawl. Your royale battlers are fast and nimble, employing double-jumps and bouncepads to soar around buildings. There are a few neat tricks besides - rather than having a circle close in, New Arcadia's map seals off one city block at a time. The effect of structures literally dissolving away as they're removed from the playing field is neat as hell.

In lieu of attachments, there's a "fusion" mechanic that sees guns upgrade by picking up duplicates, smashing them into each other to gain a better sight or a more powerful kick. Characters appear come with Apex-style abilities, too, though I'm yet to really catch any specifics.

That's currently all there is to tell on Hyper Scape. If you're up for giving it a shot, instructions for linking your Ubi account to your Twitch can be found here.

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Hyper Scape

PS4, Xbox One, PC

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Natalie Clayton

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Writes news when everyone else is asleep, sometimes

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