Hytale First Look Review by Panda

My First Hytale Review

By Panda

Hello everyone, and welcome back to the first ever review—or first look—at Hytale on our newly rebranded website. I’m calling our site Level Check Arcade, because it’s like an arcade of game reviews made by our team.

Before I start: this game is in Early Access, meaning it currently has bugs and glitches the Hytale team will need to fix over time.

Hytale was officially announced in 2018 with its reveal trailer, but the project itself was being discussed publicly earlier. By late 2016, Hypixel staff were already talking about a serious, funded “new game” in development—the project that would later become Hytale.

Clearing up the “it started as a joke” myth

From my own research over the years, there’s been a rumor that this game wasn’t even supposed to exist—that it started as a joke or as an expectation the internet ran with. I can’t verify any official Hypixel/Hytale developer statement that Hytale “started as a joke.” What is verifiable from older Hypixel forum posts is that, by December 28, 2016, Hypixel staff were describing their new game project as a serious, funded production effort—discussing team allocation, budget growth, and active development, not anything comedic or throwaway.

The “it began as a joke” framing seems to come from community discussion and repetition—memes and forum chatter that can harden into “common knowledge” over time even without a real developer quote.

As concept art and teasers started popping up to build hype, fans began calling it “Minecraft 2,” “Minecraft’s biggest threat,” or “Minecraft rival.” I’ve personally seen a lot of voxel games fail to stand the test of time, even when people swore they’d be “the one” to compete with Minecraft. The closest projects I’ve seen that could compete are Everwind and Outerverse, but that’s my biased take. Here, we try our best to stay fair and look at both sides.

The development drama (This has been fact-checked)

The game’s development history has been a rollercoaster, but the core timeline is clearer than most people remember:

April 16, 2020: Riot Games acquired Hypixel Studios, bringing the studio under Riot while Hytale stayed in development.
June 23, 2025: It was announced that development on Hytale was ending and Hypixel Studios would wind down.
November 2025: Hytale was sold back to its original co-founders, which is what made the project’s revival possible.

Now I’ll be clear that this next part is my opinion: I can’t help but suspect money was part of the reason this project nearly died. Nobody involved is going to come out and say “we ran out of funds,” but from the outside, the cancellation and wind-down reads like a studio that hit a financial wall after years of production challenges, resets, and long development. That’s my interpretation—not a confirmed statement from the teams involved.

Also, quick reality check: you’ll often see people throw around numbers like “Hypixel is worth $100 million,” but I’ve mostly seen that claim come from blogs and community chatter, not from a clean, verifiable valuation. Since it’s privately owned, there isn’t a public market cap to point to—so unless a credible financial outlet publishes hard numbers, any exact valuation is basically educated guessing. (So I’m not presenting that as fact.)

First impressions: disappointed… at first

I went in with big expectations thinking, “what’s all the hype about?” and after around three hours of game time, I was disappointed. To me, it felt like another Minecraft clone, but with an over-the-top modded vibe.

But after playing more—over five hours—I started to see why people were so invested. Don’t get me wrong: the game doesn’t do one massive thing that makes you go “WOW.” But it does have something, and it became uniquely fun once I stopped judging it and started learning it. I died a lot early on while exploring, testing what did what, and figuring out what was dangerous and what wasn’t.

The more I played, the more fun I had. I never expected to be 31 years old and start enjoying a Minecraft-inspired game again. My interest in these kinds of games died after I got my Minecraft account stolen in late 2022 by someone I knew through a mutual connection. A partnership went sour, bad actors got involved, and they tried to shut us down. It worked. I was naive back then, and because of that, my account got taken right under my nose and I couldn’t do anything about it. That killed my motivation to play Minecraft.

Playing Hytale reminded me why I played Minecraft in the first place: not knowing how everything works, using your intuition to figure things out, and learning by doing. A lot of games in 2025–2026 spoon-feed you how to play, which can make them feel boring (though to each their own).

Crafting and building: less spoon-feeding, more experimenting

For example, Minecraft’s green crafting book basically tells you what you can craft right away instead of letting you discover it. I remember when that wasn’t even a thing, and you either experimented or went to community websites to learn recipes.

Hytale leans the other way. It uses different types of workbenches for different crafting tasks, and it has a really nice touch when it comes to building towns, castles, or whatever you imagine. There’s real character to it, and the art style supports creativity.

I do wish you could have humans in the world like villagers in Minecraft—maybe even hire them to protect your land.

Here at Level Check Studios, we also have our own Hytale server for our community to come hang out and have fun with us. Just make sure you read our rules, and hopefully we can build the most epic cities, towns, and villages—and get that roleplay feeling going.

Enemies, caves, and consequences

Hytale doesn’t have humans like villagers (at least not in that same way), but it does have skeletons, goblins, merfolk, and other oddball enemies that can make the game feel genuinely intense. Like I said, I died a lot early on. One time I went too deep into a cave and got jumped by what I think were dragons—maybe demons—I’m not 100% sure, but it definitely caught me off guard.

In Minecraft, if you go too deep and die, you usually lose your inventory. In Hytale, consequences feel a little different. In my experience so far, it seems like you don’t lose everything—more like you lose about half your inventory. I also assume there’s a limited window to recover what dropped (similar to Minecraft’s despawn timer), but treat that part as an assumption until it’s confirmed in official info or patch notes.

Music and atmosphere

The music genuinely surprised me. It reminded me a lot of Wizard101 music. It’s not overbearing, it’s easy on the ears, and it’s actually enjoyable. Half the time I never even thought about turning it off. Each biome having its own theme adds immersion too.

Combat and mini-bosses

The mini-bosses caught me a couple of times. Combat is easy to understand on paper: block, stab, dodge, taunt, stab, stab, power-up. But I’d be lying if I said it always felt that clean. It takes practice to find your own flow, and while each weapon feels familiar, you still need to pay attention.

If you like rogue RPGs, this game is a must-grab.

Pricing: a clear prediction

I’d pick it up while it’s still cheap—and this is a prediction on my part, not confirmed pricing—but if the game gets a full release with a bigger feature set, I wouldn’t be surprised if it ends up more expensive later. Potentially in the £70–£100 range depending on editions and regional pricing. Again: that’s my guess, not official info.

Steam note: standalone client

One more thing worth shouting out: Hytale isn’t launching on Steam right now—it runs through its own standalone launcher/client, which is its own ecosystem.