Hypixel founder Simon Collins-Laflamme says Hytale isn't ready for an Early Access launch simply because it isn't "good enough" yet for one.
This week, Collins-Laflamme announced that he'd bought back the rights to Hytale from Riot Games six months after the company shut down the project and closed its development team. In the wake of that fantastic news, AntVenom managed to score an interview with Collins-Laflamme, who dove into the current state of the project. The TLDR is that it needs more time in the oven, and it sounds like even when it does release into Early Access, it'll be fairly bare-bones.
"Let's set realistic expectations," Collins-Laflamme said. "Many features will be missing at launch. Minigames that were shown or talked about in the past won't be there on day one. There will be bugs, and it will feel like real Early Access. We will need the community to help us move forward."
Put simply, Collins-Laflamme said "right now, the game is not good enough in my opinion, and I'm aware of that."
Of course, just the fact that Hytale is back at all is good enough news, and frankly, after such a turbulent development process I'm pleasantly surprised that Collins-Laflamme is talking about release plans at all. That suggests to me that many of the core systems and features Hypixel had been working on independently and then under Riot are still in tact. Collins-Laflamme suggested modding is one of the features that still needs a lot of work.
"Modding already has a lot to offer, but we want to add more tools and features for modders, server owners, and map makers," he said. "There is so much missing, but we need to get the game out, we need to break the curse."
This is perfectly in line with what Collins-Laflamme said in his initial Twitter announcement that "Hytale is back."
"Real talk: Hytale isn't some polished AAA release waiting in the wings," he said. "It's messy. It's janky. And there's a lot of work to be done. My plan? Get it out to you as soon as possible. No more waiting. You’ll get to play it, rough edges and all. It won’t be perfect on day one. My hope is that together, we'll shape it into something truly special."
There's no Early Access release date just yet, but it sounds like we won't be waiting terribly long.
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