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Hyper Scape granting players closed beta access through Twitch drops

Ubisoft's new battle royale will follow in Valorant's footsteps to distribute beta access.

Donovan Erskine

July 2, 2020 10:15 AM

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The battle royale genre has dominated gaming for the last few years. So many companies have thrown their hat into the ring, it’s hard to think of a major publisher that doesn’t have a battle royale game under their banner. Well, that list just got smaller, as Ubisoft has announced Hyper Scape, a futuristic take on the battle royale genre. Hyper Scape is currently in closed beta, which players can only gain access to through watch Twitch streams and earning drops. 

Ubisoft has granted a wide number of Twitch streamers access to Hyper Scape’s closed beta, allowing them to exclusively stream the game. Through Twitch’s drops feature, fans can watch these Hyper Scape streams, with hopes of being randomly selected to join the beta. This news comes by way of Slasher, who tweeted an image that seems to be what Ubisoft sent to participating streamers. Ubisoft seems to be following the blueprint laid out by Valorant. Where fans had to watch live streams in order to gain access to Riot Games’ highly-anticipated FPS. 

sources: just like Riot's approach with Valorant, Ubisoft is giving select streamers exclusive access for Hyper Scape closed beta drops on Twitch to increase viewership https://t.co/HRFaKWJCgl pic.twitter.com/vziJe8sFlK

— Rod "fuck 2020" Breslau (@Slasher) July 2, 2020

Using Twitch drops to deal out beta access is a move that causes viewership to skyrocket. It also creates a sense of “exclusivity”, knowing that you were selected to get into a beta that hundreds of thousands are still desperately trying to get access to. It’s also one that ruffled some feathers, as we saw plenty of players grow frustrated that they never got into the Valorant beta, despite hours upon hours of watch time on Twitch. 

With Ubisoft hopping aboard the method of distributing closed beta access through Twitch drops, it’ll be interesting to see if this becomes common practice around the industry. For those excited to play Hyper Scape, you can go to the Hyper Scape page on Twitch now to start trying for that beta access.

Donovan Erskine

News Editor

Donovan is a journalist from Maryland. His oldest gaming memory is playing Pajama Sam on his mom's desktop during weekends. Pokémon Emerald, Halo 2, and the original Star Wars Battlefront 2 were some of the most influential titles in awakening his love for video games. After interning for Shacknews throughout college, Donovan graduated from Bowie State University in 2020 with a major in broadcast journalism and joined the team full-time. He is a huge film fanatic and will talk with you about movies and games all day. You can follow him on twitter @Donimals_