9 years into development, one-time Minecraft challenger Hytale is checking that its new engine can actually run its own game

Hytale, a potential rival to Minecraft, has been in development for nine years and is still in the prototyping phase. Developers are verifying that the new engine can support gameplay and creative goals, raising concerns about the game's release date and player interest.

Hytale began life in 2015, and when it was officially announced in 2018 it was touted as a potential challenger for Minecraft's throne. But that was six years ago, and Hytale is running far behind its originally intended 2021 launch. So I'm quite surprised to see that the project's latest update says its team is still checking if it can actually run on its new engine.

Back in its Winter 2023 update, Hytale's developers explained that they were still working on building that new engine - which began life in 2021 - while prototyping new ideas in the old engine. Now, in a Summer 2024 update eight months later, executive producer John Hendricks says that the team "has been on track" since then.

"It's been a year since we brought our shiny new engine in-house and started the process of integrating the bespoke systems and workflows we need to build Hytale," Hendricks explains. "The first half of 2024 has been focused on finishing that process and transitioning our creative teams into the new engine," he continues, going on to say that the process will continue through "the rest of the year." At that point, Hytale will hit an internal milestone, the goal of which "is to verify that our engine, tools, and processes are capable of supporting our gameplay and creative goals."

What that suggests to me is that developer Hypixel has spent the last eight to 12 months checking that the engine it built for its game is capable of actually hosting that game. That's a sensible practice, but it strikes me that it's one better reserved for the very start of development, and isn't a process that should really be taking place nine years into the project. There's still no real sense of when this game might be ready for public release, and while Hypixel says that "the wheels are starting to turn in earnest and Hytale is beginning to come to life around us once again," there was a pretty substantial sense that player interest had waned when we wrote about that Winter update eight months ago. With even its engine still not fully ready for its developers' internal testing phase, any sense that Hytale might have made a play against Minecraft seems like a pretty distant dream.

Got some time to wait? Check out the best Minecraft seeds if you're looking for a new sandbox experience.