Cancelled “Minecraft Killer” Hytale Back in Hands of Creator
- Hytale is back under its original creator, Simon Collins-Laflamme, after its shutdown under Riot Games.
- Development is restarting on the Legacy Engine for faster early access and strong community involvement.
- Early Access is coming soon, using the announcement-trailer build with modding support prioritized.
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Back From The Dead
Hytale, a voxel-based sandbox RPG first announced in 2018, was sold by creators Hypixel Studios in 2020 to Riot Games. However, Hytale and Hypixel were both shut down in June this year due to a variety of reasons including mismanagement and feature creep. Now, the original founder of Hypixel, Simon Collins-Laflamme, is resurrecting Hytale.
Hytale was supposed to receive a full release in 2021 but repeatedly failed to live up to player expectations and suffered multiple delays under Riot Games’ ownership. When news broke of the game being cancelled, members of the community and original dev team were quick to involve Collins-Laflamme, who revealed in August that he was in talks with Riot Games to buy the game back.
Collins-Laflamme shared the latest news in a post on X on Nov. 17: “We did it. Hytale is saved. We have acquired Hytale from Riot Games.”
He then went on to explain that there’s a long road ahead, but the community will be actively involved every step of the way: “This game has always been close to my heart, and I’m excited to bring it back home. Real talk: Hytale isn’t some polished AAA release waiting in the wings. It’s messy. It’s janky. And there’s a lot of work to be done.”
He added: “My plan? Get it out to you as soon as possible. No more waiting. You’ll get to play it, rough edges and all. It won’t be perfect on day one. My hope is that together, we’ll shape it into something truly special. Thanks for believing in Hytale. Time to get to work.”
A Rough Road to Launch
Widely considered a “Minecraft killer” by gaming press around the time of its initial announcement, Hytale promised to combine the open-world sandbox creation of Minecraft with explicit RPG elements. However, while these elements have since been worked into Minecraft itself, Hytale languished in development hell as its new owners sought to add more and more features, instead of polishing what it already had.
Collins-Laflamme has written an extensive blog post on the official Hytale site detailing where things stand now, and his plans for the future. These include the confirmation that he owns one hundred percent of the Hytale IP, that there are currently over 30 devs from the original Hytale team onboard, and that they’re in no rush to reach version 1.0.
“We’ve made the decision to abandon the Cross-platform Engine and return to the Legacy Engine. It’s playable now. It lets us build a game rather than an engine. It’s the version that feels like what Hytale was supposed to be. As for the Legacy Engine, we have plans to make it cross-platform later. We are in no rush.”
“This is not a polished product. This is a raw, unfinished, sometimes broken experience with incredible potential. You’ll find placeholder content, unbalanced systems, and frustrating bugs. You’ll also find moments of magic, systems that click perfectly, and glimpses of what this could become. Early access is our way of earning your trust, not asking for it.
Anticipation is Running High
The news on X has been met with overwhelmingly positive comments, and the renewed Hytale Discord channel has been bombarded with messages since the announcement. A lot of gamers are asking about possible features, as well as wondering how playable Hytale will be upon release.
On the latter point, he has said an Early Access release date will be announced very soon. As for the build version that will be available, he’s also confirmed that it’ll be the version of Hytale seen in the announcement trailer as this will allow for “faster development and immediate playability.”
One of the main questions from fans is if modding will be supported, and when. Collins-Laflamme has stated that he plans to incorporate modding support as soon as possible, since “modding isn’t just a feature for us. It’s the foundation of longevity. We’re committing to this completely.”
He’s also promised a high level of transparency around Hytale moving forward, as it’s a passion project for himself and Philippe Touchette, who co-founded Hypixel and is co-funding the game alongside Collins-Laflamme. Although neither has confirmed the state of Hypixel Studios, seeing as the official X account is also sharing new Hytale news, it stands to reason they’ve bought their old studio back too.
As for the promised transparency, this extends to game updates as Collins-Laflamme posted on X on Nov. 18 about how soon gamers will get a proper look at the current state of Hytale:
“I’ll be posting some gameplay clips this week, just finishing up installing our new dev environment today and we are good to go.”
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