Hytale is officially back in development. Hypixel has acquired the game from Riot Games and taken full ownership, bringing the project home to its original creators. Riot decided not to continue with Hytale in its previous form, but instead of letting it disappear, they handed it over to the people who started it.
In just a few weeks, more than 30 former Hytale developers have rejoined the team, with more expected to follow. Hypixel is now fully independent again and personally funding the game for the next ten years. The goal is simple: return to the original vision for Hytale and finally get it into players’ hands.
Hytale has been saved.
Quick Overview
- Early Access Date: To be announced soon
- Platforms: Windows first, Linux and Mac will be attempted later
- Price: Details coming in the next few days
- State at Launch: Expect bugs, unbalanced content and frequent updates
- Early Access Duration: Likely several years
- Launch Content: Exploration mode, creative mode and modding
- Not at Launch: Official minigames and full adventure mode
- Ownership: Hypixel now owns 100% of Hytale
- Funding: Self-funded for at least ten years
- Engine: Back to the original “legacy engine” used in early trailers
- Modding: Fully supported from day one, including custom servers
How We Got Here
On June 23rd, 2025, the announcement went out that Hytale’s development was ending and Hypixel Studios would shut down. The community reaction was huge. Many players had followed the game for years and were not ready to move on.
The original founders felt the same way. Even though they had not been directly involved since 2020, Hytale was still close to their hearts. They decided to make an offer to Riot and step back in, knowing there were big risks involved and not even having a full picture of the project’s state. After negotiating the deal, securing funding and rehiring key developers, they decided to focus on the older, more complete legacy engine so they could move toward early access much sooner.
Current State of the Game
Hytale exists in two different engines. The legacy engine (C#/Java) is the one players know from the original trailers and blog posts. It is PC only for now but already contains a lot of gameplay, more than 100 NPCs and thousands of blocks and items. It is rough in places and not fully balanced, but it is playable.
The second engine is a newer cross platform engine (C++) that has been in development for about three years. It is much less complete and would need a huge amount of work before it could support a proper early access release. Because of that, the team has chosen to set it aside and focus fully on the legacy engine for now.
This means early access will be “real” early access. Players can expect bugs, broken systems, placeholder content and lots of change over time. Official minigames will not be part of the first release, but a dedicated team will work on them once the core game is stable. In the meantime, the community will be able to create their own minigame experiences through modding.
The Vision and the Team
The founders say they want to build the game they always wanted to play and something they will be proud of many years from now. There are no outside investors or publishers directing the project. Instead, the focus is on staying small, moving quickly and listening to the community.
Leadership includes:
- Simon Collins-Laflamme – Co-founder, involved daily and helping shape the vision
- Philippe Touchette – Co-founder, overseeing finances and long term stability
- Kevin Carstens – Technical lead with deep knowledge of the codebase
- Patrick Derbic – Management lead, handling studio operations and coordination
More than 30 former Hytale developers have already returned, and the team plans to grow slowly as needed rather than scaling up too fast.
Modding At The Core
Modding is a major part of Hytale’s future. The team wants players to be able to change and build almost everything, from content to server side logic. The goal is to make it possible for both experienced developers and non coders to create impressive experiences with a bit of guidance.
Dedicated server support, data driven content and eventual access to server source code are all planned. The developers are also thinking about backward compatibility as they iterate, so that mods and servers do not constantly break without warning.
How Players Can Help
Hytale’s early access launch is not meant to look like a finished 1.0 release. It will be rough around the edges and sometimes frustrating. The team is asking players to jump in anyway and help by:
- Playing early access and exploring the world
- Reporting bugs and issues
- Giving honest feedback
- Creating mods, maps and servers
- Sharing guides and tutorials with other players
In return, the developers are committing to regular updates, detailed patch notes and open communication as they build toward the future of Hytale.
Staying Up To Date
The main home for the Hytale community will be the official Discord server. That is where the developers will be most active and where updates, feedback and community projects will be organised. Major announcements will also be shared on social platforms like X, Instagram and Reddit.
A Note From Us At Hyvote
Here at Hyvote, we are just as excited as you are to see Hytale come back. We are building what we aim to be the best third party Hytale server listing website for both players and server owners.
Our goal is simple. We want to make it easy for players to discover new servers to play on, and just as easy for server owners to reach new communities and grow their worlds. Whether you are hosting a small community server with friends or a huge, heavily modded experience, we want Hyvote to be the place where people find you.
As Hytale moves into early access, we will be rolling out features to support voting, discovery and promotion for servers of all sizes. Stay tuned for more updates as we get closer to launch.
Final Thoughts
Hytale has had a long and difficult journey, but it now has a fresh start with its original creators and a committed community. It will not be perfect, and it will not be finished for a while, but it finally feels like the game is moving forward again.
Hytale lives. And we cannot wait to see what comes next.