Seven Hyper Light Drifter Tips From Its Creators (And Four From Us)

Hyper Light Drifter is a mysterious and beautiful game (here's our review), but it is also a challenging one, which is why it's handy to bring a few best practices along with you while exploring its large world.

We spoke with Alex Preston, who is credited as the game's creator, designer, and artist about how best to approach the game's challenge. He offered up seven tips to help make your life a little easier, and we added four more to hit 11, because Spinal Tap reference. You can find Preston's tips below:

Go East first
This region is probably the "easiest" of them all, and will allow you to grab my favorite weapon in the game near the boss.

Rummage around all the nooks and crannies
This is how you will find upgrade materials. There are tells for many of the secrets.

Grab the chain dash upgrade first
It's vital!

Editor's note: In the shop where you buy the chain dash, there is a counter tracking how many chain dashes you can do. Getting up to 100 is worth the effort because it offers an upgrade point, but also because it gives you practice using the chain dash, which is invaluable against bosses.

Health upgrades can be equally valuable
It's easy to ignore these in favor of weapon and dash upgrades, but being able to carry more health packs will prove its worth later.

Bombs will clear out some of the angrier ambushes

Editor's note: Every boss will also have a window during its introduction where you can throw a bomb at it, knocking off a few health points before the fight even begins. Take every advantage you can get.

You don't have to stay in one place
If you're stuck, try going to another region for a bit. The structure is not linear.

Versus the North boss
Bring your chain dash skill into this fight. Also, let him kill his bird minions. Try mixing up your gun and sword as much as possible to quickly drain his health.

Those are all the tips from Preston (with a few of our own editorial notes). Here are some of our tips:

The shotgun is your friend
You can always carry two guns, and I recommend letting the shotgun live in one of those inventory slots. The shotgun is extremely powerful at close range, and Hyper Light is all about getting in quickly to attack at close range and getting out just as fast. Dashing in for a full shotgun blast against a large enemy and getting out of the way is both satisfying and effective.

Walk close to the edges
Preston recommends checking the nooks and crannies, which is great. I would also recommend walking near the edges. Your fairy buddy will let you know if there is a hidden path that can be activated when you're near an edge, so rather than walk down the middle of a path, walk closer to the edge and look out for the telltale question mark.

Don't waste special moves on bosses
You don't have combos in Hyper Light Drifter, but there are two special moves that are activated by pressing the dash and attack button at the same time, and by pressing the attack button shortly after the dash button. These moves are great against smaller enemies in the field, but against bosses it's better to try and pull off multiple hits with your standard attack.

Fudge the autosave
There are a number of sequences where you have to make it through long stretches of a level without dying. One way to help with these sequences is to knock out a room, and then return to the entrance (or walk back through the initial door) to re-activate the autosave. This lets you push your way through a long stretch little by little as every time you re-activate the autosave your progress is saved.

For our review of Hyper Light Drifter head here.