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If you decide to really stick with Hyper Light Drifter, you're absolutely going to get put through the wringer. There is no alternate path: Hyper Light Drifter makes you work. It's a slick, stylish game with a pixelated aesthetic that doesn't look like anything I've seen in a game before. But that aesthetic is its only immediately approachable element — the game will kill you over and over until you learn how to survive. It will drop you in the middle of an unfamiliar world without a word of exposition to help you get your bearings.
But the reward is so totally worth the effort. You can watch Simone and me conquer a particularly challenging area in Hyper Light Drifter in the video above. Not included in the video: My actual scream of elation when I finally took down that jerk bird wizard. If that sounds like your scene, Hyper Light Drifter is out on Steam now.
