Battle Royale with Arda Ocal: Hyper Scape devs on creating a ‘spectacle’ – ESPN Australia

Hyper Scape, Ubisoft’s entry into the battle royale genre, enters open beta on Sunday. Billed as a fresh outlook on battle royale, the game has elements of a traditional BR but incorporates new features — such as the ability to scale buildings with ease through a focus on verticality, a reimagined spawn system, a new “capture the crown” end-game possibility and detailed Twitch integration.
ESPN spoke with the game’s executive producer, Graeme Jennings, and creative director, J-C Guyot, ahead of the open beta launch to discuss the game, its rollout and the crowded BR scene.
When did the idea of Hyper Scape begin?
Guyot: So it started about two years ago, but actually, before just a BR, the genesis of it was really the notion of a game as a spectacle. We looked at what we were doing as players, and we realized that we were almost watching streamers as much as we were playing games. So one of the starting points was really, how do we create this notion of a game as a spectacle where players, streamers and viewers come together? We wanted a game that was the most spectacular game possible with a very high pace — a lot of action. It made a lot of sense to unite 100 players in one battle to make it the most spectacular possible, and that’s when we started to look into battle royale with the knowledge that we wanted to differentiate a lot from what was on the market in order to create this spectacle.
Was there ever any consideration to create a game other than a BR when thinking of a game as a spectacle?
Jennings: We knew we would build a first-person shooter because it felt good within the “game as a spectacle” pillar, and then it kind of moved to the battle royale. We always agreed to be first person, and then I think we didn’t really have something that was more than BR because we wanted enough players to make the spectacle a thing overall.
Was there concern that the battle royale genre might be oversaturated already as it is, with many titles crowding the market?
Jennings: I think for us, we knew once we started to get into the fast movement, the pace, the verticality, the urbanness of the city that we would build something that felt very different. Like it’s BR within the genre, yes, but I don’t feel like the minute-to-minute play, the way you play, the stuff you do feels really like anything else in the BR genre at the minute. So whilst it sat in that

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