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The long-awaited Minecraft challenger is almost here.
"Hello everyone and welcome back to another GRTV News.
Today we're going to be talking about one of the news developments that broke at the end of last week because with it being, we've just come off the weekend and also it's just been Thanksgiving over in the US meaning there tends to be middling amounts of news that breaks during that time period."
"But one thing that did break just as we were sort of ending our work day on Friday was in relation to Hytale, which is essentially a Minecraft competitor from Hypixel Studios.
Years ago it was lauded as like this next great evolution of Minecraft and all these big hopes and expectations were placed on the game."
"But then it never really went anywhere and development took years and it continued to go on for years.
Riot Games joined as a publisher to help out and it never really went anywhere.
And then a few months ago or a few weeks ago rather, Riot Games decided after years of supporting this game that it wasn't going anywhere and they decided to pull out."
"And it seemed like Hytale was finally going to go the way of the dodos, it was finally going to get killed off and axed and iced and whatever the metaphor you want to use in relation to the game being canned.
But then the original founders of the game, the original creators of the game bought the IP back and they decided they were going to actually commit to launching it and get it out there."
"And well two weeks after that we have an official bit of information in regards to that.
So yes, Hytale is launching into early access in January 2026.
After only being saved from oblivion recently, it will soon be able to dive into the game.
And yeah, it looked like it was well and truly over for Hypixel's Hytale."
"The Minecraft competitor that had been in the works for a long while was effectively canned when Riot Games decided to pull its publishing support for the project, a decision that seemed to be the final nail in the coffin for the game.
But then things surprisingly changed and the project was revived when its rights were handed back to its creator."
"Now we have another big and promising update to report upon.
In a blog post it's been revealed that Hytale will be launching into early access as soon as January 13th 2026, two weeks after the game was reacquired by its founders.
We now know when we'll be able to dive into the project."
"It won't be the flashy new version that was in the works as Riot's developers are shifting back to a legacy build from around four years ago, which will seemingly see it sacrificing its cross-platform goals.
We stepped away from the new engine, which was intended to be a complete cross-platform rewrite, and we are now focused on reviving the original version."
"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."
"Hypixel does express that some parts of this game, due to the decision, will feel old and outdated and that the modding and creative tools won't nearly be where they want them to be in the long term, but they should still function for day one fun.
Beyond this, it's affirmed that the game will open pre-purchase on December 13th, but the developers aren't too bothered if you do snag a copy at this point or not, as they explain the following."
"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."
"We're told to expect even more updates on the project soon, so stay tuned.
So yes, Hytale is being put into early access, and as soon as, well, early 2026.
I'm assuming we'll get more information about the game relatively soon, including trailers and all that good stuff showing off this particular version of the game, so stay tuned for that in the coming weeks leading up to the launch, probably mid-December and then also maybe one early January or something like that, but the good news is, if you've been looking forward to Hytale, you'll be able to play it soon, but the bad news is that you should probably temper your expectations for this version of this build of the game for the time being, as it looks like it's going to be a bit rough and a bit buggy."
"Again, as we know more, be sure to keep your posts updated, and otherwise that's all the time that I have, so thank you for joining me, and I'll see you all on the next year TV news, which will be tomorrow."
