The mix of MOBA and side-scroller, Hyper Universe, is closing on Steam and PC in Europe and North America. The game sparks a discussion about breasts.
The closure in South Korea: Last week, it became clear that Hyper Universe will be shutting down in South Korea. Publisher Nexon stated that there simply weren’t enough players left. After about two years in South Korea, the game will be closed there on November 15.
Hyper Universe was a mix of side-scroller and MOBA and aimed to be really quirky, which apparently has not been successful.
What’s behind this: This continues the big “PC-MMO” die-off in South Korea. Many second-tier games have been struggling there for a few years because South Koreans are totally into mobile gaming and what they used to play on PC is now played on mobile. The market for PC games has become significantly smaller.
In the past, online games from the second tier could find their niche in South Korea and remained active for years. For a few years now, they have been closing relatively quickly.
With the closure in South Korea, it was already evident that the Western port of Hyper Universe would also not have a rosy future.
The end in the West: It has now been revealed that Hyper Universe will also come to an end here in the West. The game will still be playable via the Nexon Launcher and Steam, but it is heading towards closure.
Here in the West Hyper Universe only started in early January 2018 – so they can’t even last a year.
This is how the end unfolds:
- On November 15, the cash shop will close.
- On December 19, the servers will close.
- On January 19, 2019, customer support will cease.
Will there be refunds in Hyper Universe? Players who purchased items between August 18 and October 19 will receive their money back in “NX”, which is Nexon’s shop currency.
This is what remains of Hyper Universe: Hyper Universe is still running on Xbox One. However, whether it will see significant further development remains to be seen.
Smaller breasts for greater success in the West
Breast reduction made headlines: The larger gaming public only talked about Hyper Universe once.
The game was permissive in South Korea, and Nexon thought they needed to tone it down a bit for the West based on feedback from some players. Therefore, the female models received smaller breasts. Later, this Western version was also adjusted to the Korean version.
Some gamers were upset about this, claiming that the “original decisions” of the artists should be respected and the breasts should be left as large as originally intended.
In the end, it probably wasn’t so important for the success of the game to reduce the breasts to fare better in the West.
