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Hyper light drifter physical3/19/2023 ![]() It doesn’t get much clearer as the game progresses, but that’s deliberate. Only three things are clear from the intro of HLD: 1) the Drifter is ill, 2) the Drifter wants to destroy an elusive black creature, and 3) this black creature is linked to the Drifter’s illness. ![]() The score remakes the heroic soundtrack into something filled with the dread of malady, rather than excitement for the next leg of the journey. Everything is beautifully eerie, mysterious, and unsettling. You’ll hear no jaunty tune or heroic ballad like you would in Zelda or the Uncharted series. A rumbling bass, a spooky melody with a hanging note, or a distant metallic screech follow you. The game’s score by Disasterpiece adds to the dread. Between the precision required, and the speed of the combat, you’re never far from death. The combat revolves around precise movements where a false step could spell your death. The enemies grow more difficult, but you can’t deviate any attention from this mechanical representation of your illness. The hard mode of the game doesn’t increase the difficulty of the enemies but instead lowers the health bar down to two. It remains at five points and never goes any higher. Your health bar in Hyper Light Drifter is a constant source of distress. The gameplay tends to inspire more empathy than wonder for the central hero. The emphasis on the Drifter’s physical illness reframes the hero’s journey as one that requires attention to an internal issue rather than an external threat. In an interview with Vice, his cardiologist noted that “ feels that there is a guillotine hanging above his head, and at any moment something could happen, and it could drop.” This dread is a part of the experience playing the game, by way of the Drifter’s sickness. His company, called Heart Machine, is named after the machine in his heart that keeps him alive. You know you’re seriously ill.Īlex Preston, the man behind HLD, is a game designer with a serious heart condition. The screen fuzzes out as if it may go black whenever the Drifter coughs, disorienting you as the player. The Drifter coughs up blood the first time you see him and continues to do so throughout the game. When you play any other action-adventure game, you’re usually playing as either a superhuman or you are destined to be superhuman. By having no clear narrative framework except that of the standard action-adventure video game hero, no clear morality in any of the characters, but a strong element of disease in your playable character, Hyper Light Drifter suggests that fighting an illness is enough to make you the hero of an action-adventure story. In Hyper Light Drifter, you’re not a hero.
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