Have you ever wanted to fly around a narrow, procedurally generated area with infinitely spawning enemies, desperately trying to find somewhere to plug your spaceship in? That sounds oddly specific, but that’s essentially HYPERWIRED in a nutshell. It’s a roguelike built around docking your ship with satellites and smaller ships to recharge and collect powerups that will hopefully help you survive the relentless onslaught of enemies. It’s a simple concept that, with the right execution, should make for a really fun game.

I’ve heard of minimalism, but this is just a bit much.

There are two game modes in HYPERWIRED, the first is your regular game mode where you go through each level, collect upgrades to hopefully stand a better chance as you progress, and fight a few bosses before finishing a run. Your main objective in each room is to unlock a set number of satellites, which unlocks the big main satellite, which lets you progress to the next room. The second game mode is a challenge mode. This locks you out of certain aspects of the game like not being able to use your main weapon, having to rely on small ally ships, and simple stuff like that. The game progresses the same way, just with some limitations.

In the words of Primus, “here come the bastards.”

Visually, HYPERWIRED is very simple. It’s mostly a black background with a bit of colour for the walls. Every ship has a different design, but not enough to make them easily distinguishable beyond their size. The same goes for the regular enemies, although there isn’t much variety between them anyway, so it rarely becomes an issue. Boss ships, on the other hand, are much larger, making them immediately obvious, and they usually appear alongside other enemies. The minimalist visuals can also make it surprisingly difficult to tell when an enemy is charging towards you or when a bullet is heading your way, which makes some of the damage you take feel a little cheap.

Would you rather all laser and no pew, or all pew and no laser?

One of my biggest issues with HYPERWIRED is how restrictive every ship feels. You need to rely on satellites to recharge your ship’s energy, health, and ammo, but both your energy and ammunition drain incredibly quickly, even if you’re trying to play conservatively. That becomes frustrating when enemy spawns suddenly ramp up and you’re left drifting through space, hoping a satellite floats close enough to bail you out. It doesn’t help that the enemies don’t have to play by the same rules. A boss can chase you around indefinitely, while you have to stop and make yourself an easy target just to recharge enough to keep fighting.

The big plug just looks so silly and it never stops looking silly.

Overall, everything I thought I would enjoy with HYPERWIRED fell well short of expectations. I love roguelikes because they’re easy to sit down and play, especially on Switch, but this never held my attention for more than a single run at a time because some of its mechanics are just too frustrating. The core gameplay is genuinely great, but those same mechanics constantly weigh it down, getting in the way of simply enjoying the game. Everything comes back to how limited your ship’s stock feels. You end up paying more attention to your resources than the game itself, and unless you’re playing a survival horror game, your eyes really shouldn’t be glued to the corner of the screen.

HYPERWIRED is available now on Nintendo Switch, PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One.

Reviewed on Nintendo Switch 2.

A copy of HYPERWIRED was provided by the publisher.