HYPERCHARGE: Unboxed goes viral

Small soldiers meets Halo. Toy scale shooter goes viral.

| Developer: Digital Cybercherries | Platforms: Steam, Switch and Xbox |

---

Hypercharge: Unboxed originally released on Steam and Nintendo Switch in 2020, but this week the team announced that the game would be launching on Xbox. This sent the internet into a mad frenzy, causing the game to go viral.

The game reached 14 million views on a single video on twitter, 60,000 Instagram followers, 50,000 Twitter followers, over 350,000 TikTok followers and became one of the best selling games on Steam. All in the space of a few days, but what is Hypercharge: Unboxed and why did it gain so much popularity all of a sudden? We decided to join the masses and bought ourselves a copy on Steam to find out.

For those of you that are old enough, this game is a homage to retro Film, TV and 90's pop culture. You play as a toy soldier who must defend 3 beacons against waves of classic toys like small green army men or power ranger type ninjas.

Once the match begins you must build up your defences and prepare to defend your bases. Coins collected from around the map or from killing enemies can be used to build walls, traps and automated defences. These coins can also be spent on upgrading your firearm too. New stocks, sights and other attachments can be added. The standard assault rifle barrel can be swapped for a shotgun, sniper or even a flamethrower to melt the plastic baddies.

There are a few game modes available. We spent most of our time playing waves, which as previously described is round-based, but there is also a death match mode that sees 3v3 players shooting it out in a scaled-down version of Halo essentially.

Plague mode sees a random player becoming infected, it's their job to infect the rest of the players in the match to win.

Free Roam lets you explore all the extremely detailed levels without having to worry about pesky enemies "terminating" you.

You can join friends, match-make and browse the selection of servers available. There is also a tutorial mode for those who aren't sure how the game works.

With Hypercharge comes a bunch of customisation options. Players can choose an action figure to play as, these include things like a ninja, a crocodile and many others. As you play new skins are unlocked for your action figure that can be equipped after each match. There is also a whole host of weapon skins to place on your gun too.

Players have multiple playgrounds to choose from, a superstore, garage, bedroom and a garden plus a few more. All insanely detailed, vibrant and cleverly designed. Each map has a range of vertical jumping points and encourages the player to get up as high as possible with the reward of coins and other useful items. We found ourselves taking a break from the shooting just to have a closer look at the finer details. You'll even come across Booglins.

The most admirable thing behind this game is that the team making it at Digital Cybercherries is so small. With a squad of just 5 people they have managed to make an extremely fun, detailed and graphically impressive game.

Sadly, due to their small size and over-night success they seem to have become victim to internet dickheads who just want to tear the game and its time in the lime light down. This seems to have taken its toll on the mental health of the team, which is unfair. We think that given the small team and what they've managed to achieve is incredible and this exposure is well deserved.

We picked up the game for about £13 in the steam sale and it was well worth the purchase. We will definately be sinking some more hours into it.

---