If ever there was a game that embodied the maxim of Show, dont tell, its Hyper Light Drifter. The 2D action RPG developed by indie studio Heart Machine launched to critical acclaim back in 2016, buoyed by the strength of fast and frenetic gameplay, its evocative score, and a successful Kickstarter campaign during the heyday of the crowdfunding platform. Nearly a decade later, Heart Machine has returned with a prequel to its breakout hit: an open-world roguelike set in a vibrant world teeming with dangers and secrets aplenty.Hyper Light Breakers design feels heavily indebted to the likes of Risk of Rain 2, as it translates the simplified art style and moment-to-moment combat of its 2D forebear into a procedurally generated 3D setting. Players assume the role of a Breaker, a treasure-hunting warrior tasked with rebuilding the world in the wake of a terrible cataclysm. As a Breaker, youre dispatched into the Overgrowth, a wasteland ruled by the Abyss King, a mysterious antagonist with the power to reshape the environment at his whim.To progress, players must traverse the Overgrowth collecting prisms to unlock the arena of one of the Crowns, the Abyss Kings lieutenants. These arenas can be found scattered throughout the world, either secreted away in one of the Overgrowths many dungeons or held by a particularly powerful enemy that must be defeated. Thats not all youll find, as the world is rich with a variety of powerful weapons, monoliths that offer lore about the history leading up to the games events, and a dizzying multitude of collectibles and currencies that, Ill be totally honest, I havent quite sussed out all the uses for yet.Strip away all that proper noun-laden lore and those byzantine skill trees and you have a fairly competent, challenging roguelike experience with satisfying combat and traversal mechanics. I couldnt tell you to what extent the story of Hyper Light Breaker relates to the events of Hyper Light Drifter because sincerely, at this point in the games early access release, theres not much in the way of a story to be gleaned. The monoliths scattered throughout the Overgrowth can be decoded back at the Cursed Outpost, your base of operations, which in turn unlocks textless comic slideshows that reveal more about the background of the Crowns and their role in the Abyss Kings conquest. Anything else is pure inference.Where the game excels most is in its visual and sound design, taking the touchstones of Heart Machines original game and updating them. There were many moments during my initial playthrough where I found myself pausing before shrines reminiscent of the ones I encountered in Hyper Light Drifter, or gliding across a neon plain atop my hoverboard as a melancholic synth track poured in through my headphones. Hyper Light Breaker may not have quite the same retro vibe as its predecessor, but it is most certainly a mood. To put it another way: As Hyper Light Breaker signals the franchises move from out of the shadow of its aesthetic debt to The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past or Nausica of the Valley of the Wind, it feels as though it is becoming more and more like a proper, self-contained universe itself, rife with surprises and potential that were previously constrained by a deference to the past.That may not be enough for some fans of Hyper Light Drifter to hang their hopes on. Speaking for myself, however, Ive enjoyed the handful of hours Ive spent fighting through the Overgrowth and acclimating to Hyper Light Breakers steep yet gratifying difficulty curve. Ive seen and played enough so far that, while Im not entirely sold on the game as it stands now, Im confident enough in Hyper Light Breakers foundation to believe that Heart Machine can iterate and build on this initial release to create a worthy successor to its pixelated namesake.