The release of Hytale has been postponed to 2023 at the earliest. But there’s plenty of news to make up for it.
The sandbox role-playing game Hytale, whose visuals and gameplay were heavily inspired by Minecraft, was actually already considered “almost finished”. After more than half a year of radio silence, the developers have now come back with a big update blog entry – and surprisingly pushed back the release planned for 2021 by at least two years.
Hytale release postponed to at least 2023
Release 2023 at the earliest: According to the developers, Hytale should be released in 2023 at the earliest, possibly even later – because they realised that they still have a few years of work ahead of them.
This is why Hytale is delayed: The developer studio Hypixel was bought by League of Legends and Valorant makers Riot Games in 2020. The additional resources available as a result of the acquisition are now the reason for the postponement:
“The first half of 2021 has been a time of significant change, both for Hytale and Hypixel Studios. We have continued to recruit new team members whose talents and unique perspectives have expanded our vision of what Hytale can be.”
As the Hytale team writes in the blog post, however, the wait should be well worth it:
“Our capabilities as a studio have improved significantly and the scope of what we can do has expanded. Simply put, we’re better at making games than we used to be, but taking full advantage of that takes time.”
If this is the first you’ve heard of Hytale: Get a good look at the Minecraft competitor in our preview video.
What new features await you?
Crossplay: The studio cites the fact that Hytale is now being co-developed not only for the PC, but also for consoles and smartphones as one of the biggest time-consumers. In order for as many players as possible to be able to play together in the future, they would have had to take a few steps back during development. This is to avoid different versions separating players – as is the case with Minecraft with the Java and Bedrock versions.
Advanced character creation: Players will be able to customise their avatar generously at release, combining basic components such as faces, eyes and hair. In addition, there are fantasy elements such as horns, tusks and elf ears – nothing special so far. But the layering system will be interesting: for particularly unusual looks, further visual adjustments can be layered here, such as items of equipment.
New combat system: Depending on which weapon type you have equipped, your combat style will change. Attacks with swords can be charged up so that you can use them to perform whirlwind attacks, for example. Maces, on the other hand, are very slow and require good timing, but cause massive damage.
All this should also help to give the NPCs more personality:
“The system allows certain creatures to express their personality through the way they fight. NPCs evaluate various conditions – including the number and behaviour of enemies – to guide their next action. These range from the aim and timing of their basic attacks to the execution of certain actions, such as changing weapons, using a special attack or fleeing.”
