Heart Machine Confirms Some Goals Won’t Be Met
In a rather bit of disappointing news, Alex Preston of Heart Machine confirmed that the planned versions for Hyper Light Drifter won’t be coming down the pipe after all. He released a rather detailed video explaining the logic behind it, and frankly, the reasons make a whole lot of sense. It hurts to hear, but this is simply business in this case.
Alex’s video states the major reason in this case being his health, and the sheer work needed to get the game running into an acceptable state is simply not worth it at this point, especially with the physical toll it has taken on him. He noted that with the Vita version that “we had worked for months to get it working on the platform.” Sony’s handheld, despite the sheer processing power it has for a portable device, just couldn’t meet the standards that Heart Machine had for Hyper Light Drifter. The Wii U version of Hyper Light Drifter got the axe for different reasons, though.
Alex notes that the Wii U version wasn’t going to happen thanks to the lack of a native port version. Nintendo and Hyper Light Drifter’s publisher couldn’t make ends meet, with Alex going so far as even trying to obtain the source code to help make the game work within the GameMaker engine. The writing was on the wall in this case, and both versions of the games would need to be essentially built from scratch, which would put the release off even further.
Fortunately, fans who backed for those versions won’t be left high and dry though. If you backed the Vita or Wii U version of Hyper Light Drifter, you can request either a refund for the title by reaching out to the website, or if you have another platform, you can request your key get swapped for one of the platforms that Hyper Light Drifter was already released on.
Game development isn’t easy folks, and Alex’s video shows a sobering look into just how hard it can really be.