The Minecraft-like MMO Hytale started its development journey in 2015, with Riot Games being one of the team's 'angel investors' that helped move production along, before Riot would eventually acquire Hypixel Studios, the team behind Hytale. It would also die under Riot, with the game cancelled in June 2025, and Hypixel Studios disbanded. However, just last week, the game's original creator, Simon Collins-Laflamme, announced that he had repurchased the rights from Riot and would kick development back up.
Now, Collins-Laflamme is making good on his promise to announce an early access release date "soon," with a blog post on the official Hytale website confirming that the long-awaited and promising MMO will arrive in early access on January 13, 2026.
"Two weeks ago, we, the original founders, repurchased Hytale, months after it was cancelled," the post began. "We revived the project, and we are returning to a four-year-old legacy build that had been abandoned. We are personally committing funding for many years to come."
"...Since the cancellation, we’ve rehired more than 40 former and new team members, bringing the total to 50. Reacquiring a game from a AAA studio and preparing an early access launch within weeks is rare, and players will be able to watch the progress as it happens."
Collins-Laflamme doesn't try to sugarcoat what the state of the early access release will be, saying that the game will be exactly what you'd expect from an early access game, which is a game that is nowhere near done.
"If you don't feel comfortable pre-ordering, please don't. This is true early access, 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. The first impression will be rough, but the path ahead matters more."
While telling your potential customers not to buy your product isn't exactly the best sales pitch, it's clear that Collins-Laflamme and the team are committed to making Hytale the game they always envisioned it to be. Part of this resurrection process has been stepping away from the newer engine the team was previously trying, with the team now working to revive the original version of the game.
"This required picking, choosing, and merging more than 300 GitHub branches into a single working branch. It was a significant engineering effort, but we're now confident enough to launch early access. Hytale and Hypixel Studios are independent again, and we are returning to the original vision from the 2018 trailer."
"Because we went back to an older game build that was now meant for prototypes, some parts of the game will feel behind, but momentum is strong, and we're working fast to make this into the game we all dreamed of."
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