Riot Games began development a decade ago on its own big-pixel sandbox in the style of more established giants like Roblox and Minecraft. HyTale, as the project is called, raised a lot of buzz when it was announced, until Riot announced its cancellation, shutting down the project and the HyPixel games studio in the process.
The news came as a bombshell to the active fan community that had been gathering over the years, to the point that even studio head Simon Collins-Laflamme considered buying back the IP from Riot for $25 million. Nothing firm, of course, unless he can get a surprising outside investor to cover the costs.
And he's no stranger to the industry: Eric "ConcernedApe" Barone, creator of Stardew Valley and the upcoming Haunted Chocolatier. Barone took to HyTale's Discord channel to say that he "would be interested" in saving HyTale, but that he would first have to know the still-hidden reasons that led to its cancellation. On the other hand, the independent creator has assured that his involvement in the project to save HyTale would be hypothetical, as his only task now is to make progress with Haunted Chocolatier.
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The hashtag #SaveHyTale is making progress on social media and, although its future is dark right now, in video games you can never say that you're totally dead.
Do you think we'll see HyTale one day thanks to the fan campaign