Hytale finally launches this week with a bright future ahead

Hytale, the highly anticipated Minecraft-like adventure game that’s been in development for a decade, is nearly here. After developer Hypixel Studios was acquired by Riot Games in 2020, shut down by Riot in June 2025, and went independent a few months later, the team is launching Hytale in early access on January 13th.

And if you jump in at launch, you can expect updates for years to come — which could be reassuring if you felt burned by other ambitious but quickly shuttered games like MultiVersus and Concord. “We have officially secured the next two years of development costs through pre-purchases,” according to Hypixel co-founder Simon Collins-Laflamme, who has also made a “personal commitment” of 10 years to the project.

“Hytale blends the freedom of a sandbox with the momentum of an RPG: explore a procedurally generated world full of dungeons, secrets, and a variety of creatures, then shape it block by block,” according to Hypixel. “Our Early Access release focuses on polished core systems – exploration, responsive combat, and robust building – alongside creator‑first tools for making your own content, crafting minigames, and running community servers.”

The initial launch will be “true early access,” Collins-Laflamme said in November, “meaning it’s still very much unfinished and will be buggy for a while, but you have my and the team’s commitment to make Hytale the game we’ve always wanted it to be.”

Hypixel expects “over 1 million players” on Hytale’s early access release day, Collins-Laflamme says. It will be available on PC, Mac, and Linux starting at $19.99. Hypixel is planning on a console release of the game “at a later stage,” and there won’t be a mobile version during early access, according to an FAQ.

Riot’s shutdown of Hypixel followed layoffs in 2024. At the time, the company announced it would be “refocusing on fewer, high-impact projects to move us toward a more sustainable future,” which included stopping work on new games through its indie publishing label, Riot Forge.