"The issues were all internal": Former Hytale dev says the Minecraft-inspired survival RPG's cancelation has nothing to do with Riot: "The community should be angry at the mismanagement"

Hytale, the once promising Minecraft-style survival crafting game, was canceled yesterday amid the closure of developer Hypixel Studios. And with the studio's corporate overlord, Riot Games, looming in the shadows, it's natural to meet the League of Legends maker's gaze with suspicious eyes. However, one former Hytale dev says the blame lies entirely on the developer itself.

In a scathing duo of tweets, former Hypixel IT lead DevSlashNull sticks the Hytale cancelation squarely on the studio's new management.

"Hytale: what could possibly go wrong when you hire new leadership that thinks the original team is incompetent?" reads the first tweet. "Oh the whole project ends up going in circles until it dies.

"The community should be angry at the mismanagement that stole the opportunity for hytale to flourish."

In a follow-up tweet, DevSlashNull had nothing but good things to say about working with Riot, adding, "they understood the power of empowering and giving folks agency" and stressing that, "the issues were all internal to Hytales leadership."

There was once a time when Hytale at least had the appearance of potentially challenging Minecraft for the voxel-shaped survival crafting throne. Propelled by the immense and still enduring popularity of the Hypixel Minecraft servers, Hytale's announcement trailer from 2018 has racked up an astonishing 61 million views at the time of writing.

With Riot still seemingly in possession of the IP, it's still something of an open question whether the remnants of Hytale will ever be picked up and turned into anything, but DevSlashNull says the odds are slim.

"Hard to say, but I doubt it," reads a separate tweet. "The team that had the original vision and values had all left or been let go yesterday."

At least we still have these games like Minecraft to play.