Sandbox RPG Hytale positioned itself perfectly in 2018 to become the next Minecraft. But in 2024, fans are still waiting in vain for a release and updates from the developers are rare. A YouTuber sheds light on what became of the “Minecraft killer”.
What game is it about? Hytale is supposed to be a sandbox RPG in the style of Minecraft that does everything better than the original, but retains the blocky charm of the original. On December 13, 2018, the game was announced with a trailer that quickly garnered over 30 million views on YouTube. The video currently has 61 million views (as of December 2024)
On the 6th anniversary of the trailer release, YouTuber Casual Curious sheds light on what the alleged Minecraft killer is doing.
Hytale – Trailer for the Minecraft MMORPG
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Hytale wanted to be like Minecraft, only better in every way
This is the story behind Hytale: In 2018, Minecraft found itself in a difficult phase: hackers made the game unsafe and content creators were looking for new content. Although Minecraft still attracted many players, the big hype seemed to be over.
Hytale wanted to make everything better: an adventure mode, RPG combat, strong modding community involvement, and anti-cheat, all with attractive graphics. A release was planned for 2021, and 2.5 million players registered for the planned beta.
Hytale was founded by Hypixel Studios, a development studio owned by the people behind the Minecraft server of the same name, which is best known for its mini-games. We already reported on the project at the time.
In 2020, Riot bought the company but let it continue to operate as an independent studio. At this point, Hytale was supposed to be almost finished, but apparently, as with so many things, the corona pandemic got in the way. In 2021 the game was therefore postponed to 2023.
However, in 2022, the developers announced that they would be redeveloping Hytale’s entire engine and switching from Java to C++. The release has therefore been postponed indefinitely. Since then, the game has been quiet.
Although there are always small snippets in the form of screenshots or one or two clips, major updates from the developers only come out twice a year, in summer and winter.
You can watch the full video from Casual Curious here:
A victim of your own hype?
What’s behind it? As the YouTuber shows, no one was as surprised by the hype surrounding the game as the developers themselves. In a blog post from November 2019, the developers explained that the huge reaction “changed everything”.
The hype made it possible to gain new partnerships, but at the same time the team’s demands on itself and the game increased. You only have one chance to make a good first impression. The developers obviously wanted to be sure that Hytale would live up to expectations when it was released.
Casual Curous therefore suspects that the developers initially planned to release Hytale as an “Early Access” title and gradually add all the promised features. But since millions of people were now waiting for the game and the expectations were huge, that was probably no longer possible.
To make matters worse, Minecraft has been thriving again since 2019 and has also received numerous updates and improvements during this time. What was once supposed to set Hytale apart from the original no longer seems so special in comparison.
At the same time, the need for an alternative has also decreased. The Hypixel server itself is also doing great. According to Casual Curious, several million US dollars are earned there annually with in-game currency. So you no longer need Hytale.
What is the current status? The developers last reported on December 17, 2024 in the dev blog on the official website. In it they report on the progress in switching to the new engine as well as an internal playtest.
Game director John Hendricks also gives an outlook on the coming year. After the successful internal test, gameplay and content are now to be brought into the new engine. In the first half of the year the aim is to concentrate on competitive and creative elements.
The second half of 2025 will focus on adventure mode and social aspects. Playtests are also planned for this period.
Ultimately, if Hypixel ever sees a release, it will face similar hurdles as other new games that want to assert themselves against established genre competitors.
These challenges recently contributed to the failure of Sony’s big new hero shooter. You can read more about it here on MeinMMO: Why did Concord fail so badly on Steam and PS5 and did Sony burn $250 million on a woke catastrophe?