The good and bad of this very average battle royale debut

In the increasingly crowded multiplayer market where battle royale games seem like a dime a dozen, a game must introduce new features or redefine the genre to stand out. Ubisoft's Hyper Scape attempts to do just that. First revealed during the Ubisoft Forward virtual event on July 12, 2020, Hyper Scape is a fast-paced battle royale that drops players into the virtual streets of Neo Arcadia to compete for supremacy in a game called Crown Rush.

I was excited to dive into Hyper Scape, and it felt immediately familiar to me. For the uninitiated, a battle royale is when multiple players enter an arena, scavenge for weapons, and try to outlast each other to be the last man standing. As players duke it out, they're forced closer together, and the area around them gets smaller. On its surface, Hyper Scape is reminiscent of its contemporaries, but the unique gameplay mechanics that set it apart also hold it back from being a genuinel...