Hytale, the now creator-owned blocky sandbox RPG currently undergoing some deep-seated maintenance to become fully playable, is a rare story of success against all odds in the games industry. Simon Collins-Laflamme, co-director of Hytale and founder of Hypixel, took some time to address the exhaustive work going on to make the game worthwhile on Twitter. "It's a damn miracle we were able to salvage Hytale," he says. "It was barely playable. All basics were broken. Camera, movement, combat, crafting, building, gameloop, sounds, rendering. Everything, everything was wrong." He notes that prior to now, "four years of engineering" was dedicated by Riot Games to rebuilding Hytale's engine, a foundation Hypixel isn't using that left the same length of time worth of issues to clean up. "When you don't invest in gameplay, you don't just lose time," he adds. Hytale is "coming together at last" according to dev, who says 60 playtesters have just given the Minecraft-inspired game their stamp of approval: "Long way to go but momentum is key" "We inherited a true hardcore engineering and design challenge": Hytale co-director "genuinely" means it when he says the sandbox RPG is "not good enough" right now Fresh from bringing his canceled Minecraft competitor back from the dead, Hytale boss shares new gameplay footage as "a taste of things to come" – but there's still "a lot of work" to be done "You lose momentum, iteration, and player feedback," he continues. "Now the focus has to be on gameplay first and rebuilding trust by actually shipping things at a rapid pace." Thankfully, the team is making record time, accomplishing in weeks what could've taken months or years. "It should have taken years to fix, but within weeks, we got the game into a playable, fun state," he says. "And now, instead of slowing down or celebrating a release, we have to keep pushing for years to make up for the time that was lost." Riot canceled work on Hytale the summer of 2025, and in November, Collins-Laflamme announced he'd reacquired Hytale, to be put out in early access by Hypixel on January 13, 2026. In the replies to this post, he outlines the current plan for getting a workable release in order. "No meetings, trust the team, push to main and pray," he says. "Solid vision, no prototypes. Cutting some corners, will pay some tech debt later." We'll see more when Hytale becomes available to play. Hytale owner calls Minecraft "one of the greatest" games of all time, but his own sandbox is going in a "different direction" with crafting more like Terraria.