Heart Machine has revealed Hyper Light Breaker, a 3D, co-op focused game set in the same world as the cult classic Hyper Light Drifter, coming to Steam Early Access in Spring 2023.

The announcement marks the sixth birthday of Hyper Light Drifter, the studio’s seminal action/adventure game that took players on a beautiful but melancholic journey through a ruined world. That first game was built around challenging combat and a wealth of secrets that offered brief glimpses into the game’s otherwise opaque narrative.

However, where Drifter offered a 2D single-player experience (albeit with a local co-op mode that was added post-release), Heart Machine is now looking at creating Breaker in 3D, with online co-op as the focus.

The announcement trailer (below) seems to indicate that Breaker will combine Drifter’s exacting combat with the elegant traversal mechanics seen in Heart Machine’s second game, Solar Ash. Speaking to IGN, creative director Alx Preston also noted that it will be “a little more systems-heavy, with more RPG mechanics” compared to Drifter, complete with a range of distinct playable classes.

“And when we say online cooperative play, we mean multiple players, not just you and another person; we're looking at a group of players that can go out and kill some monsters together.”

The online aspect represents a second major technological leap for Heart Machine since its debut; Solar Ash saw it make the transition from 2D to 3D, resulting in a game that was well-received, but took nearly twice as long to make as Drifter.

We asked Preston if having already made this transition might result in a smoother development cycle for its new 3D game. “Yeah. I mean, that is definitely part of it, now that we've made that transition into Unreal and built up the technology. It's important for us to make sure that we're releasing content on a more regular basis, and we aren't locked into a very focused mentality without being super public about it for multiple years on end.”

The plan to announce Breaker roughly a year before its intended launch on Steam Early Access is a big part of this desire for transparency, and marks a natural progression from Drifter’s early success on Kickstarter.

“We want to get Breaker out there. We want to start talking openly about development, about the process, doing live streams and all sorts of fun stuff like that. Because I think on Drifter, after the Kickstarter, we ended up doing something similar on a smaller scale, where we can engage on a regular basis with that particular community.”

While Solar Ash was a departure from the Hyper Light universe, Breaker is very much a part of it. Drifter’s story was told without a single word of dialogue, instead opting for environmental cues, alien text that players needed to translate outside of the game, and occasional cutscenes that blurred the line between things that actually happened to the player character, and their own illness-induced hallucinations.

Despite this - or, more likely, because of it - players really bought into Drifter’s narrative and, six years on, are still keen to learn more about its world. “There will be threads and things for people that have played Drifter, that they will get some value out of for sure. And certainly, there's an aesthetic and vibe, and the lore of the world that we're continuing to build off of.”

Preston adds that you won’t need to have played Drifter to know what’s going on. “But still, it continues the lineage in a lot of ways.”

It’s too soon to discuss the story or themes, we’re told, but Preston suggests that Breaker will likely follow in Drifter’s footsteps, while reflecting ongoing changes within the team as a whole. “I think we tend towards these elements of past experiences that have really shaped or formed us in some ways. For me personally, it's my own health struggles that I've tried to put out there in some fashion or another, and with Solar Ash being a bigger team of people feeding into the story, it became a broader context for those vicious circles that you can go into.”

“There's humour that I think we want to tap into a little bit more. We started to do that with Solar Ash a bit. But I think our stories are still going to be dark and about subjects that are really tough to deal with, regardless of the format of the game. Sure, Breaker is online multiplayer, but we still have a story to tell there. We still have a world that we've built, and we still have themes to tap into.”

Players can look forward to examining those themes (while killing monsters with their friends) when Hyper Light Breaker hits Steam Early Access in Spring 2023.

Correction: Heart Machine and Gearbox have clarified that Hyper Light Breaker will not be a sequel to Hyper Light Drifter, but will be set in the same universe. We've updated the story to match.

Sean Bell is a freelance writer, podcaster and streamer. You can find his bad jokes and worse opinions on Twitter: @CaptainToss.

Xbox Game Pass is set to receive a long-awaited Family Plan, according to a new report from Windows Central.

Though Microsoft has offered family plans for Xbox Live Gold for many years, Xbox Game Pass has always been a single-account subscription. That's all reportedly changing with an incoming "Family Plan" that will allow users to share the service across multiple consoles and households.

The report states that a higher tier of Xbox Game Pass will allow up to five other players to access the full library – so long as they reside in the same country as the primary account holder. The new plan is expected to make use of Microsoft's existing Family Account system used with services like Office 365.

Whether there will be separate plans for Xbox Game Pass and PC Game Pass is uncertain at this time. There is also no information regarding pricing, though it's likely to come in at a reasonably cheaper price than paying for the subscriptions individually.

At the cost of $9.99 per month, Xbox Game Pass provides subscribers with a rotating list of games from a variety of publishers, including day one releases for Microsoft's first-party titles at no additional cost. Meanwhile, Xbox Game Pass Ultimate combines the service with Xbox Live Gold for $14.99 a month, giving players access to Xbox's online multiplayer functionality and monthly free games via Games With Gold.

MLB The Show 22 will join Game Pass on April 5, while the point-and-click adventure Chinatown Detective Agency will land on the service on April 7. Microsoft is expecting to announce the remaining April Game Pass releases soon.

Billy Givens is a freelance writer at IGN.

Xbox Game Pass is set to receive a long-awaited Family Plan, according to a new report from Windows Central.

Though Microsoft has offered family plans for Xbox Live Gold for many years, Xbox Game Pass has always been a single-account subscription. That's all reportedly changing with an incoming "Family Plan" that will allow users to share the service across multiple consoles and households.

The report states that a higher tier of Xbox Game Pass will allow up to five other players to access the full library – so long as they reside in the same country as the primary account holder. The new plan is expected to make use of Microsoft's existing Family Account system used with services like Office 365.

Whether there will be separate plans for Xbox Game Pass and PC Game Pass is uncertain at this time. There is also no information regarding pricing, though it's likely to come in at a reasonably cheaper price than paying for the subscriptions individually.

At the cost of $9.99 per month, Xbox Game Pass provides subscribers with a rotating list of games from a variety of publishers, including day one releases for Microsoft's first-party titles at no additional cost. Meanwhile, Xbox Game Pass Ultimate combines the service with Xbox Live Gold for $14.99 a month, giving players access to Xbox's online multiplayer functionality and monthly free games via Games With Gold.

MLB The Show 22 will join Game Pass on April 5, while the point-and-click adventure Chinatown Detective Agency will land on the service on April 7. Microsoft is expecting to announce the remaining April Game Pass releases soon.

Billy Givens is a freelance writer at IGN.

Hayden Christensen has called it "a great honor" to be able to wear the Darth Vader suit again in the upcoming Disney Plus series Obi-Wan Kenobi, describing the experience as “surreal” and a “unique opportunity.”

It has been nearly two decades since Christensen first donned the infamous villain's suit in the climax of Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith, but the actor is excited to reprise the role once more.

"It's a great honor to get to put that suit on," Christensen told EW. "And I was just really excited to get to come in and play Darth Vader at this point in the timeline because it did feel like a natural continuation of your journey with the character. And that was very meaningful for me."

Christensen also seems happy to be returning during a period when interest in the Star Wars franchise has been renewed. "One of the things I loved so much about working on Star Wars projects is just that shared excitement," he said. "That everyone's real excited to be there. You feel that energy, and that's a really special thing."

Obi-Wan Kenobi picks up ten years after Revenge of the Sith and follows the titular character – played once again by Ewan McGregor – during his period of exile on Tatooine, where he finds himself watching over a young Luke Skywalker.

With so many returning characters and a focus on a formative period in the Star Wars canon, Christensen knows there's a lot of questions surrounding the new show. He refused to offer much in the way of important details, however.

"I don't know what I can share in terms of behind-the-scenes type stuff because I don't think they want me saying too much. But I can tell you the first time that I saw Ewan as Obi-Wan again, that was a very special moment for me and one that I'll remember for a very, very long time," Christensen said.

The first episode of Obi-Wan Kenobi was originally set to debut on May 25, but Disney has since pushed the release back two days. It will now premiere as a two-episode launch on May 27.

Billy Givens is a freelance writer at IGN.

Hayden Christensen has called it "a great honor" to be able to wear the Darth Vader suit again in the upcoming Disney Plus series Obi-Wan Kenobi, describing the experience as “surreal” and a “unique opportunity.”

It has been nearly two decades since Christensen first donned the infamous villain's suit in the climax of Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith, but the actor is excited to reprise the role once more.

"It's a great honor to get to put that suit on," Christensen told EW. "And I was just really excited to get to come in and play Darth Vader at this point in the timeline because it did feel like a natural continuation of your journey with the character. And that was very meaningful for me."

Christensen also seems happy to be returning during a period when interest in the Star Wars franchise has been renewed. "One of the things I loved so much about working on Star Wars projects is just that shared excitement," he said. "That everyone's real excited to be there. You feel that energy, and that's a really special thing."

Obi-Wan Kenobi picks up ten years after Revenge of the Sith and follows the titular character – played once again by Ewan McGregor – during his period of exile on Tatooine, where he finds himself watching over a young Luke Skywalker.

With so many returning characters and a focus on a formative period in the Star Wars canon, Christensen knows there's a lot of questions surrounding the new show. He refused to offer much in the way of important details, however.

"I don't know what I can share in terms of behind-the-scenes type stuff because I don't think they want me saying too much. But I can tell you the first time that I saw Ewan as Obi-Wan again, that was a very special moment for me and one that I'll remember for a very, very long time," Christensen said.

The first episode of Obi-Wan Kenobi was originally set to debut on May 25, but Disney has since pushed the release back two days. It will now premiere as a two-episode launch on May 27.

Billy Givens is a freelance writer at IGN.

Microsoft has backtracked on changes to Xbox that would have removed the option to share captures directly to Twitter.

Earlier this month, reports hinted that an Insider build on Xbox consoles had removed the feature, meaning users would have had to upload screens to the Xbox app before sharing to Twitter from there. Fortunately, Microsoft has reversed course after fans objected, and the latest Xbox Insider update preview restores the option.

2/2 Part 2 Flight Plans - Planning on taking a new 2204 build to the Beta Ring later today with details to come - Thanks for your feedback on the Twitter share feature change we flighted in 2204 - that change is being reverted to the previous behavior from today in this new build

— Brad Rossetti (@WorkWombatman) March 30, 2022

Brad Rossetti, the Xbox Insider Program Lead, confirmed the restoration of the feature in the latest beta update on Twitter yesterday.

Sharing your gameplay natively to Twitter through your console helps avoid using your smartphone as a middle man to post captures. Nevertheless, if you want to get a tweet that is more than a few words out, typing that message out on a controller might not always be ideal, so using your smartphone is not always a bad idea.

Sony and Nintendo also allow you to post to Twitter directly on PS5 and Switch. However, Sony has now started rolling out an option for people to auto-upload their PS5 captures on their phones via the PlayStation app.

Nintendo also allows for an option just to send the captures and footage to your smartphone if you do not want to post natively – though it requires additional legwork as you need to use your phone to scan a QR code that appears on the console, and the process itself is a bit awkward. A third-party app called SwitchBuddy helps alleviate that issue if you want to use your smartphone.

Taylor is the Associate Tech Editor at IGN. You can follow her on Twitter @TayNixster.

Microsoft has backtracked on changes to Xbox that would have removed the option to share captures directly to Twitter.

Earlier this month, reports hinted that an Insider build on Xbox consoles had removed the feature, meaning users would have had to upload screens to the Xbox app before sharing to Twitter from there. Fortunately, Microsoft has reversed course after fans objected, and the latest Xbox Insider update preview restores the option.

2/2 Part 2 Flight Plans - Planning on taking a new 2204 build to the Beta Ring later today with details to come - Thanks for your feedback on the Twitter share feature change we flighted in 2204 - that change is being reverted to the previous behavior from today in this new build

— Brad Rossetti (@WorkWombatman) March 30, 2022

Brad Rossetti, the Xbox Insider Program Lead, confirmed the restoration of the feature in the latest beta update on Twitter yesterday.

Sharing your gameplay natively to Twitter through your console helps avoid using your smartphone as a middle man to post captures. Nevertheless, if you want to get a tweet that is more than a few words out, typing that message out on a controller might not always be ideal, so using your smartphone is not always a bad idea.

Sony and Nintendo also allow you to post to Twitter directly on PS5 and Switch. However, Sony has now started rolling out an option for people to auto-upload their PS5 captures on their phones via the PlayStation app.

Nintendo also allows for an option just to send the captures and footage to your smartphone if you do not want to post natively – though it requires additional legwork as you need to use your phone to scan a QR code that appears on the console, and the process itself is a bit awkward. A third-party app called SwitchBuddy helps alleviate that issue if you want to use your smartphone.

Taylor is the Associate Tech Editor at IGN. You can follow her on Twitter @TayNixster.

NASA's Hubble telescope has smashed records by observing the farthest individual star ever seen, having detected light from a star that took 12.9 billion years to reach Earth.

Nicknamed "Earendel," this newly detected star emitted its light during the first billion years of our universe when the universe was only 7 percent of its current age, at redshift 6.2, per NASA. Astronomers use redshifts to measure how the universe is expanding and to determine how far away an object is from Earth by looking at the "shift" in wavelengths.

Earendel, which means "morning star" in Old English, has become the most distant individual star to ever be seen by quite a significant margin as the previous single-star record holder, detected by Hubble in 2018, existed when the universe was about 4 billion years old, or 30 percent of its current age, at redshift 1.5, with its light taking 9 billion years to reach Earth.

NASA shared an annotated view of Earendel's position along "a ripple in space-time (dotted line) that magnifies it and makes it possible for the star to be detected over such a great distance." There was a huge galaxy cluster sitting between the star and Earth, which created a powerful natural magnifying glass for the celestial objects behind it.

Having examined the star, the research team estimated that Earendel is at least 50 times the mass of our sun and millions of times as bright, rivalling the most massive stars known. For comparison purposes, it's worth noting that the mass of the sun is 1.989 x 1030 kilograms, which Space.com estimates to be about 333,000 times the mass of the Earth.

"Normally at these distances, entire galaxies look like small smudges, with the light from millions of stars blending together," said Brian Welch, an astronomer at Johns Hopkins University and lead author of the paper. "The galaxy hosting this star has been magnified and distorted by gravitational lensing into a long crescent that we named the Sunrise Arc."

The discovery was made by observing data collected during Hubble's RELICS (Reionization Lensing Cluster Survey) program, led by co-author Dan Coe. It is understood that follow-up observations will now take place, using NASA's new infrared James Webb Space Telescope to investigate Earendel's brightness, temperature, and composition.

"Studying Earendel will be a window into an era of the universe that we are unfamiliar with, but that led to everything we do know," Welch added, speaking of the extraordinary new benchmark that has been set. "It's like we've been reading a really interesting book, but we started with the second chapter, and now we will have a chance to see how it all got started."

Welch noted that Earendel may not have had all of the same raw materials as the stars around us today and that if it's found to be made up of primordial hydrogen and helium, then it would offer the first evidence of the Population III stars — which are "hypothesized to be the very first stars born after the big bang," though he admits the probability of that is low.

NASA recently celebrated another cosmic milestone, having added 65 more planets to the space agency's Exoplanet Archive, bringing the total number of confirmed, detectable planets beyond our solar system to over 5,000, with many of those planets having been detected by using powerful telescopes, both in space and on the ground.

Astronomers previously discovered 139 new "minor planets" in the far reaches of our solar system, just beyond Neptune's orbit. The vast expanse of the galaxy also plays host to a free-floating world without a host star, a "hell planet" that is strangely similar to Darth Vader's lava homeworld of Mustafar, and a Super-Earth that's nearly as old as the universe itself.

Adele Ankers-Range is a freelance writer for IGN. Follow her on Twitter.

Thumbnail image credit: Space Telescope Science Institut/NASA, ESA, B. Welch (JHU) and D.

NASA's Hubble telescope has smashed records by observing the farthest individual star ever seen, having detected light from a star that took 12.9 billion years to reach Earth.

Nicknamed "Earendel," this newly detected star emitted its light during the first billion years of our universe when the universe was only 7 percent of its current age, at redshift 6.2, per NASA. Astronomers use redshifts to measure how the universe is expanding and to determine how far away an object is from Earth by looking at the "shift" in wavelengths.

Earendel, which means "morning star" in Old English, has become the most distant individual star to ever be seen by quite a significant margin as the previous single-star record holder, detected by Hubble in 2018, existed when the universe was about 4 billion years old, or 30 percent of its current age, at redshift 1.5, with its light taking 9 billion years to reach Earth.

NASA shared an annotated view of Earendel's position along "a ripple in space-time (dotted line) that magnifies it and makes it possible for the star to be detected over such a great distance." There was a huge galaxy cluster sitting between the star and Earth, which created a powerful natural magnifying glass for the celestial objects behind it.

Having examined the star, the research team estimated that Earendel is at least 50 times the mass of our sun and millions of times as bright, rivalling the most massive stars known. For comparison purposes, it's worth noting that the mass of the sun is 1.989 x 1030 kilograms, which Space.com estimates to be about 333,000 times the mass of the Earth.

"Normally at these distances, entire galaxies look like small smudges, with the light from millions of stars blending together," said Brian Welch, an astronomer at Johns Hopkins University and lead author of the paper. "The galaxy hosting this star has been magnified and distorted by gravitational lensing into a long crescent that we named the Sunrise Arc."

The discovery was made by observing data collected during Hubble's RELICS (Reionization Lensing Cluster Survey) program, led by co-author Dan Coe. It is understood that follow-up observations will now take place, using NASA's new infrared James Webb Space Telescope to investigate Earendel's brightness, temperature, and composition.

"Studying Earendel will be a window into an era of the universe that we are unfamiliar with, but that led to everything we do know," Welch added, speaking of the extraordinary new benchmark that has been set. "It's like we've been reading a really interesting book, but we started with the second chapter, and now we will have a chance to see how it all got started."

Welch noted that Earendel may not have had all of the same raw materials as the stars around us today and that if it's found to be made up of primordial hydrogen and helium, then it would offer the first evidence of the Population III stars — which are "hypothesized to be the very first stars born after the big bang," though he admits the probability of that is low.

NASA recently celebrated another cosmic milestone, having added 65 more planets to the space agency's Exoplanet Archive, bringing the total number of confirmed, detectable planets beyond our solar system to over 5,000, with many of those planets having been detected by using powerful telescopes, both in space and on the ground.

Astronomers previously discovered 139 new "minor planets" in the far reaches of our solar system, just beyond Neptune's orbit. The vast expanse of the galaxy also plays host to a free-floating world without a host star, a "hell planet" that is strangely similar to Darth Vader's lava homeworld of Mustafar, and a Super-Earth that's nearly as old as the universe itself.

Adele Ankers-Range is a freelance writer for IGN. Follow her on Twitter.

Thumbnail image credit: Space Telescope Science Institut/NASA, ESA, B. Welch (JHU) and D.

Star Wars: Obi-Wan Kenobi episode 1 has been delayed by two days – but we'll now get two episodes to watch when the show launches on Disney+.

Announced in a message from star Ewan McGregor, Episodes 1 and 2 will now be released on Friday, May 27, rather than the original May 25 date.

While the show will debut on a Friday, all subsequent episodes will be added on Wednesdays.

The show will now premiere during Star Wars Celebration – so you can imagine the fan conference will feature a live screening event. Celebration will take place from May 26 to 29 this year.

Set 10 years after the events of Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith, Obi-Wan Kenobi will see Ewan McGregor return to the title role (alongside Hayden Christensen as Darth Vader) for the first time in 17 years. McGregor has said the series is arriving amid a new wave of positivity for the Star Wars prequels, which were maligned at release.

The teaser trailer for the show, released earlier this month, gave us a glimpse at what's to come in the limited series, and our trailer breakdown shows how it solves a very old Star Wars mystery.

The main cast was revealed last year, and includes the likes of Joel Edgerton, Kumail Nanjiani, Moses Ingram and many more set to join or rejoin the Star Wars universe.

For more from the many worlds of Star Wars, check out how Obi-Wan is set to be a "standalone season", and why Liam Neeson hasn't been asked to play Qui-Gon Jinn. Check out Obi-Wan's greatest moments too. And if you want a sneak peek at what Uncle Owen could be like in the show, watch our (definitely not silly) video of him reading a Star Wars script written by IGN.

Joe Skrebels is IGN's Executive Editor of News. Follow him on Twitter. Have a tip for us? Want to discuss a possible story? Please send an email to newstips@ign.com.