Hyper Scape is having a rough launch on Twitch
Ubisoft entered the crowded battle royale market yesterday with Hyper Scape, a new first-person shooter promising a unique twist on the crowded formula. Ahead of its release, the game looked like it had potential to be a big hit on Twitch, even topping the streaming giant’s most-viewed charts the day it was announced and its technical test first went live. Sadly, the hype for Ubisoft’s futuristic free-to-play game has fallen off significantly, as it’s now pulling in abysmal viewership just one day after release on console and PC.
As of this afternoon, Hyper Scape has over 240,000 followers and just 11,000 viewers tuning in to watch various content creators stream it live. (Compare that to Fall Guys, another battle royale game that launched last week, which has over 311,000 active viewers this afternoon and 431,000 total followers on the platform.) Hyper Scape’s other competitors — Fortnite, Apex Legends, Call of Duty: Warzone, and PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds — have millions of followers and hundreds of thousands of viewers tuning in on a regular basis.
Ubisoft had big streaming plans for Hyper Scape, too, hoping it could rival the most popular titles on Twitch. Ahead of its release, Ubisoft announced it was working on special Twitch integrations for the game, allowing viewers to decide random map events that would temporarily affect a streamer’s active match, such as infinite ammo or low gravity. That same type of integration would also allow streamers to set up and partake in matches with their viewers instantly.
It’s not clear what’s causing such low viewership for Hyper Scape; it could be a number of factors such as oversaturation in the battle royale genre and stiff competition from games like Fortnite and Call of Duty: Warzone, which frequently release new content to keep players coming back. Perhaps Shroud’s return to streaming exclusively on Twitch is another contributing factor. The popular streamer did at one point have over 500,000 people watching his return to play Riot’s new tactical shooter Valorant.
Ubisoft is no stranger to growing its games over time. The company turned Rainbow Six Siege into a global esports phenomenon over the course of many years and countless updates and expansions. There is, of course, plenty of time for Hyper Scape to do the same. But considering other battle royale hits have seen tens of millions of new players in their first weeks on the market, Ubisoft may need to get creative to help convince everyday players and streamers to give it a shot sooner rather than later.
Ubisoft entered the crowded battle royale market yesterday with Hyper Scape, a new first-person shooter promising a unique twist on the crowded formula. Ahead of its release, the game looked like it had potential to be a big hit on Twitch, even topping the streaming giant’s most-viewed charts the day…
