Six or so years on from an announcement trailer that made it clear people had an appetite for their game’s Minecrafty building and survival shenanigans (it’s got 61 million views to date), Hypixel Studios have announced that Hytale has been cancelled. On top of that, the studio themselves are gearing up for closure.
Hytale’s development kicked off all the way back in 2015, with its devs being the folks behind the huge Hypixel Minecraft server. League of Legends publisher Riot Games bought the studio in 2020, not long after we learned that Hytale would have undead chickens, and not long before the game’s target release year started being pushed back.
“This is not the outcome any of us – at Hypixel or at Riot – wanted,” Hypixel co-founder Noxy wrote in an update post on the studio’s 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.”
He went on to paint a picture of feature creep lining the road to the game’s demise, explaining:
Over time, as our vision evolved and the genre matured around us, the bar kept rising. Our technical ambitions grew more complex, and even after a major reboot of the game engine, the team found that Hytale still wasn’t as far along as it needed to be. It became clear we’d need a lot more time to get it to a place where it could support the ambitious vision for the game. 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.
Noxy added that the studio did try to seek out “investors or acquirers who could continue to help carry Hytale forward” once Riot had made the call to pull its backing, but this looks to have come to nought. With Hypixel Studios now “winding down”, the co-founder thanked the publisher for providing “generous severance and resources” to staff who’re being laid off.
It’s also worth noting that Hypixel’s Minecraft server will continue to run as normal despite the cancellation and impending closure.
It’s a really unfortunate end for Hytale, assuming the game isn’t able to be resurrected in some way further down the line, especially given the decade Hypixel put into developing it. “We’re proud of what we built, and we’ll carry those lessons forward into whatever comes next,” Noxy wrote to close out his post.