“Minecraft Killer” Hytale is Dead; Former Devs Speak Out on Studio’s “Chaos”
First announced in December 2018, Hytale was considered by many gamers and gaming press at the time to be a potential “Minecraft killer.” Aaron “Noxy” Donaghey, CEO of Hytale’s developers Hypixel Studios, announced on June 23 that the game, and the studio itself, were being shut down. Now, former Hypixel staff are speaking out about the news.
Hytale borrowed Minecraft’s voxel sandbox construction and mixed it with RPG elements, as well as promised a robust engine for advanced scripting. Hypixel Studios was acquired in 2020 by Riot Games, with the belief that Hytale would be available to play in 2021. Donaghey’s official post on the game/studio cancellation didn’t actually make it clear what the issue was, other than possibly trying to attain perfection.
“This is not the outcome any of us – at Hypixel or at Riot – wanted,” he said, on the game’s official website. “But after years of pushing forward, adapting, and exploring every possible path, it became clear we couldn’t bring Hytale to life in a way that truly delivered on its promise.”
“We looked at reducing scope, adjusting timelines, and finding new angles to keep moving forward. But each of those options would have meant compromising on what made Hytale special in the first place. It wouldn’t have been the game we set out to make. And it wouldn’t have been the game you deserve.”
Sounds Like Bullshit
Understandably, for a game that’s been in development for around 10 years without even a beta or Early Access phase (so with no actual game to play, at all, at any point, for the public), people are upset. Many have taken to X (Twitter) to respond to Donaghey’s news with less-than-favorable thoughts.
“You did this to yourselves, it’s very sad to see this game fall into the over ambition and hype. The game looked amazing years ago, this mixed with the engine upgrades and kicking the can further down the road,” said NOI2Z. “This hurts, and it’s incredibly sad to see this go like this as I’ve been waiting for this game since 2018 like so many others.”
“I don’t get why studios don’t just release the project as is, see how the audience responds, and then determine next steps,” said Code With Joe. “It seems like just giving up and throwing it all away because ‘it wasn’t the game we set out to make’ is an easy out. I mean look at games like No Man’s Sky. Terrible launch, lots of missing features, but now it’s a super well put together sandbox space game.”
Plenty of other users called Donaghey out for being a terrible CEO, alongside accusations that he had mismanaged the project for years. Quite a few people also chimed in to express a lack of surprise at the news, given that Hypixel revealed in July 2022 that it was completely redeveloping the game engine for Hytale. This is an extremely risky thing to do to a game after years of previous development, nevermind one that was also already way behind schedule.
Kevin Carstens, former Game Systems Lead, also took to X to voice his thoughts on the cancellation, as well as his time with the company.
“Hearing ‘it wasn’t feature creep’… Honestly I can only smash my face in the table if anyone believes that. Systems that were already far ahead of Minecraft at the time were completely re-invented to make them ‘even better’ resulting (in) fuck all.”
“The job was actively killing me,” he added. “When you lay in bed dreading to get up because you know you are working on managed decline is the worst thing you can do as a person that thrives and lives off passion.”
Fun Chaos
Carstens did also highlight how the studio used to run like a well-oiled machine, with everyone operating at a high level of passion and drive.
“A lot of the good memories I had with Hytale were when we worked in the chaos phase,” he said. “We built the legacy engine while being naturally aligned on the mission. We were working together so well that every single week we showed our progress to each other in the one Monday meeting.”
NinjaCharlieT, former Senior Animation Lead with Hypixel said, “Yeah, we were cranking out insane content back then. Driven by pure, burning, unrelenting passion.”
Hytale’s former Security and IT Lead, DevSlashNull, echoed this sentiment on X, and added his own take on the cancellation: “Hytale: what could possibly go wrong when you hire new leadership that thinks the original team is incompetent? Oh the whole project ends up going in circles until it dies.”
“The community should be angry at the mismanagement that stole the opportunity for Hytale to flourish.”
The Future of Hypixel
Although the general consensus is that Hytale has been killed by mismanagement, those directly involved with the game/studio have spoken out on behalf of Riot Games and even to defend Aaron “Noxy” Donaghey. Chief among these is Simon Collins-Laflamme, the original founder of Hypixel Studios.
“During my time working on Hytale in 2016-2019, it was maybe to the absolute maximum two years away from a PC release with the legacy engine and vision. I still have videos, screenshots and old client builds to attest to that. All developers from that time that I’ve talked to say the same,” he said.
“As for Noxy, I have known him for 14 years now and I think people are quick to blame everything on him and for the wrong reasons. Yes, ultimately he’s responsible as the CEO, but I feel like it’s because Noxy trusted and hired ‘real’ producers with ‘real game’ experience from the game industry and let them drive the project into something else with bigger plans, and they started to rewrite tons of features, systems and even the engine.”
“Riot had been good to me during that process (leaving Hypixel Studios) and I appreciate it, they are truly a great company and gave so much freedom to the team,” he added.
Although Hypixel Studios is being shuttered by Riot, Hypixel still exists, and will continue to, as a Minecraft server (started, and still run, by Collins-Laflamme). This server, which is only available on the Java (PC/Mac) version of Minecraft, includes a bunch of Minecraft minigames and runs regular events including popular SkyBlock, Bed Wars, and SkyWars games.
