After cancelling Hytale and selling it back to the original owners, Riot Games gives kudos to the Minecraft-inspired RPG's devs on a successful launch: "Congrats on early access"

A Hytale character prepares to enter a glowing blue portal — (Image credit: Hypixel)

After over a decade and being cancelled and then resurrected by the original developers, Minecraft-inspired RPG Hytale is now in early access. It’s a rare, unequivocal win from the game industry, so much so that even previous custodian Riot Games has congratulated the team on becoming playable.

On Twitter, the official Riot account quote-tweeted the Hytale account with the message. "Congrats on early access," the publisher states, with a first bump. Hytale responds in kind with a simple and delightful, "Thank you for helping bring Hytale home."

Congrats on early access 👊 https://t.co/mSgKch3qMdJanuary 13, 2026

Sadly, the industry had other ideas, and Hytale was canned and Hypixel closed by Riot Games in June 2025, the latest in a string of structural changes within the corporation. But the founders of Hypixel managed to continue the studio independently and negotiate getting the rights to the game back, and in November 2025, development began again in earnest, leading to now.

Members of the team have been honest about the personal costs involved, taking time away from their loved ones to get this over the line. Hytale required a top-down revamp to become shippable, making production tricky.

However, over a decade from when people started making it, the game is finally publicly playable. Hundreds of thousands of players have already booted up the blocky sandbox, and should quality hold, and many more will perhaps follow suit. To see the two central companies involved amicably celebrate the game going out into the world is genuinely endearing. A reminder there's always good happening amid the chaos.

Hytale's first hotfix arrived just hours after launch, fixing a bug that could see eyebrows crash the game