The following piece contains spoilers for Hyper Light Drifter
Also, the story in Hyper Light Drifter is told entirely without text, so all names and proper nouns are derived from the Hyper Light Drifter wiki. In addition, while the player character is typically known as the Drifter, this would create three things in this article which I refer to as “Drifter,” alongside the game’s name and the general concept of a “drifter.” For the sake of clarity I have chosen to refer to the character as The Magician, an alternate name derived from the Steam trading card the character appears on.
Hyper Light Drifter was a game I almost entirely missed out on last year, playing it for about an hour before putting it away and not touching it until the very first day of this year. Over the course of two sessions and 6 hours, I plugged away at the game (finishing it that day) and came back very impressed. The controls were tight even as I used the non-ideal mouse and keyboard setup, combat was fast and fun with enemies that forced me to mix up my tactics, and the visuals were stunning. For a game that could easily be dismissed as “another pixel game,”the places and vistas were amazing, and let you know what the world of Hyper Light Drifter was like, just by their appearance.
For the uninitiated, Hyper Light Drifter tells the story of The Magician, one of many Drifters drawn to Central Town. Each drifter is afflicted by a mysterious illness which threatens their lives, and leads them to follow a mysterious dog known as the Jackal in their search for a cure, periodically assailed by visions: a sea of bodies after a catastrophe; a shadow assailing them; hellish titans too large to comprehend; a massive tower which bursts from the ground; a strange crystal, corrupted by a malevolent force.
The Magician fights through four different areas surrounding Central Town, defeating bosses and raising pillars, eventually leading them to a final confrontation. As you play, the Magician periodically encountering other non-player characters such as a fellow drifter known as The Guardian, who points you in the direction of important collectibles called Modules in each area. The areas are diverse and fun to navigate through, but there was one thing which seemed to link them all: evidence of war and destruction.
Hyper Light Drifter’s world is filled with legacy and history. The corpses of giants cling to mountains, vehicles are overgrown with vines and ivy, ruins lie at the bottom of lakes long forgotten, all of which points to a huge past of prior events. But it is a history of violence and war, of destruction and weaponry. The giants have been killed in the midst of attacks, and the vehicles are armored and fitted with heavy armament. All the Magician can do, all you can do, with that legacy is contribute to it. You cannot read books littered around a library, you can only destroy their stories and words. You cannot broker peace with other beings, only kill them before they kill you. For all you contribute to the legacy of death, you cannot even respect it; coffins and remains are set dressing, and the bones of those who came before, which you find littered about, are as easily crumbled as what those people left behind. You’re even actively encouraged to destroy anything and everything you can as you go through areas; attacking enemies and objects refills the ammunition bar on your gun, an important tool in combat.
When you defeat enemies in the world, their bodies are left behind. But they don’t disappear quickly after you leave them behind, they stick around for quite a while. That was something I definitely noticed when I first backtracked through an area: every enemy, every body, was still there. Dead. Exactly where I killed them. Eventually they *do* despawn, if you leave an area entirely, but I almost wish they didn’t. It felt big, when I saw them still lying there. Another part of the legacy, left behind to be found by someone else.
Even as your adventure comes to a close, you cannot avoid violence. The game leads up to a climactic finale against the shadowy being known as Judgement, who attacked you at the beginning of the game and who you’ve potentially seen several times since if you’ve been collecting enough of the Modules. In the visions which you receive after finding the fourth Module in an area, Judgement appears and, in the tradition of the game, violently attacks you. In one, he summons small crystals which whip and slice through the Magician’s skin. In another, he comes down upon the Magician with his full mass, crushing them into a pile of blood. In the most violent I can recall, Judgement turns his tendrils inwards before stabbing them out, impaling the Magician. He effortlessly lifts the Magician up, watching as they writhe in pain and eventually die.
The fight against Judgement is grueling, with large area attacks forcing you to unfavorable positions, and a single misaimed dash being the difference between survival and getting a massive evil laser to the face and dying. As you strike the final blow, the Magician goes in for the kill, unleashing a flurry of blows before finally plunging their blade deep into…
The crystal you’ve been going after the entire game; the Immortal Cell. The story is vaguely told, but it certainly seems like you’ve been chasing it the entire game, hoping it would be the key to your survival. And now it’s destroyed.
It’s hard to tell if it’s intentional or Judgement tricking you in a final moment. But throughout the game it seems like the core itself was not evil, merely corrupted. Perhaps there was a way to save it, to bring it back to a purer state. But that’s not how the Magician solves problems. Not now, nor anytime prior. The Magician destroys. They destroy monsters, they destroy remains, they destroy harmless objects, and now they’ve destroyed the Immortal Cell.
Despite this, it is generally considered by fans that the Magician has done the right thing. The structure of light which hung above the world disappears, and the Jackal which has appeared throughout the game certainly seems pleased with the outcome, entering a massive structure in one final vision, after which the Magician, apparently, dies. Their hard work is given no reward, their hope in a cure for the disease which has plagued them for the entire game dashed. Their fate is the same as The Guardian, who you see perish earlier in the game, and the same as all others who chose this over peace.
And yet...it seems as though someone had to choose this path. If destroying Judgement and the Immortal Cell is what it took to save the world, then someone had to pick violence. The people who stayed in town, who didn’t fight, are happy. They have their homes and their shops. They peddle their wares and play soccer in the local field. In your journey, you meet a fellow warrior, potentially a drifter, who chooses to return to town, to give up violence, and they turn out okay. But if everyone chose peace, chose to not fight, then Judgement keeps their power and the Immortal Cell stays corrupted. Fan theory claims that Judgement’s goal was to bring back the titans you see in your vision, and destroy the world. If no one stopped him, the world would quite literally end.
Everyone who fights dies.
But somebody has to fight.
Someone has to kill, to save everyone else. It’s a difficult path to choose, and one that carries severe repercussions. But someone has to do it, for everyone’s sake.
One final note I’d like to make: Throughout the game, especially before the violent visions I mentioned earlier, you see further evidence of the Magician’s illness. He hunches over, his vision blurs, and he coughs up a lot of blood. But, the puddles of blood disappear almost immediately, as do the ones created to help show you that your health is low. Your fights stay behind; evidence that you fought and killed remains. But the evidence of your struggles, of your illness, of the times that you were almost the one killed, of the times you bled, that doesn’t stick around. That isn’t what you’ll be remembered for.
Hyper Light Drifter is available via Steam, Humble Store, and GOG on PC, Mac, and Linux; via Playstation Store for Playstation 4; and via Xbox Marketplace for Xbox One
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