Hytale Review
An Exploration Sandbox Game With A Bright Future
WARNING: THIS ARTICLE MAY CONTAIN DISCUSSIONS involving SPOILERS FROM Hytale. CONSIDER WHEN AND WHERE IT WOULD BE APPROPRIATE TO READ THIS PIECE.Platforms
We Reviewed our copy of Hytale on PC via Hytale Client.It is currently only available in Early Access through the Hytale Client on Hytale.com
Call it Minecraft 2 or the next Block Game, Hytale is the next game in a long line of Minecraft look-alike games. However, there is something more polished and interesting about Hytale that makes it seem like it could become real competition for the gaming industry colossus that is Minecraft. I went into this review of Hytale with low expectations because in my mind, no Minecraft-like game could ever come close to replacing Minecraft for me. While I have not played Minecraft for several years, Minecraft came out when I was in sixth grade and I played it religiously throughout middle school. Even today, Minecraft is still an extremely popular game, and I have a ton of respect for it. With that in mind, Hytale exceeded my expectations for the time I played and has very high potential to become even better moving into the future. It plays similarly enough to Minecraft to remind me of my early days in Minecraft but differentiates itself in ways that make it feel like a good quality, stand-alone game.
Before jumping into the reasons why Hytale is a good game, I want to discuss the interesting development pipeline it has been through. Hytale was originally developed by Hypixel Studios, a studio inspired by the popular Minecraft server: Hypixel. For context, the Hypixel Minecraft server is a Massive Multiplayer Online (MMO) style server with unique professions, bosses, story, and so much more. Using this as inspiration, Hypixel Studio began creating Hytale in 2018. Their development eventually got far enough that Riot Games, creators of games like League of Legends, Valorant, and more, acquired Hypixel Studios with the goal of publishing Hytale under Riot Game’s name. Unfortunately, in June 2025, Riot Games shut down the development of Hytale. A few months after being shut down, Hypixel Studio bought back the rights to Hytale from Riot Games. In January 2026, Hytale was released in early access and was extremely successful, selling nearly two million copies within the first few weeks.
From the outset, I want to be very clear about something – Hytale is a game that is still in early access. It does play better than an early access game but lacks the content of a fully released game. There are regular updates to address the lack of content and other issues. I will be reviewing Hytale as it is currently in February 2026, but keep in mind that things I mention in this review may change and become outdated with time.
Hytale vs. Minecraft
Look its a dinosaur
First, I must address the elephant in the room. Hytale looks like Minecraft, it plays like it, and it was inspired by it, but Hytale is not Minecraft despite its many similarities. That will not stop me from comparing the two games though. I will be blunt about it – Hytale is not nearly as good as base game (vanilla) Minecraft is currently. If we include mods, which is a big part of both games, Minecraft completely blows Hytale out of the water. All that being said, it is unfair to hold Hytale to the standards of Minecraft. Minecraft has had over 15 years of support and development, while Hytale just released in early access. Instead, I will compare current Hytale to Minecraft 1.0 that released over 15 years ago, which I played a lot. Hytale, in its current state, is better than Minecraft 1.0.
A Mini Boss appears
There are more similarities between the Hytale and Minecraft than there are differences. The mining, building, parts of the exploration, complexity, and much more are effectively the same. The main differences come in the combat and crafting systems of Hytale. The combat is more dynamic. Different weapons have different abilities, and different enemies have different attacks, and there are a lot more variety of weapons and enemies in Hytale than there are in Minecraft even today. Crafting is slightly more complex, requiring different “crafting stations” to craft different types of items. These stations need to be upgraded with different tiers of resources that are found through exploration to craft higher quality items. Both systems, along with the plethora of enemies to fight, monuments to find, and biomes to explore, set Hytale apart as a good, stand-alone game from Minecraft that will become even better with time and more developer updates.
Gameplay and Modding
Hytale’s gameplay is still in development. There are Sandbox and Creative game modes, but the Adventure mode with clear progression and story is still unavailable. Even in the Sandbox and Creative modes, there are monuments and NPCs that literally have “Work in Progress (WIP)” signs posted on them. However, what is available can still provide hours of fun gameplay. The main gameplay loop is building a base and exploring new biomes to find materials to craft higher quality items. Certain biomes like volcano islands or underground dinosaur jungles are more dangerous but also more rewarding with higher quality resources that can be used to craft end game tools, armor, and weapons. Lastly, there are also temples with portals scattered throughout the world, entering these portals allows players spend their “Knowledge” (i.e. the creatures discovered on their journeys), which unlocks new items to craft and even to possibility for create player made portals for easier traversal across the world.
Just like Minecraft, Hytale was built so that fans could create mods for the game. From simply adding new commands to the game, to creating entirely new games within the Hytale Client, there are already a ton of interesting mods for Hytale. I am not going to get into any of the details about the mods, but I will say a couple things about modding in a game like Hytale. First, community modding allows for endless replay-ability of the game and can even result in new games, just like how the Hypixel Minecraft server has resulted in Hytale. Second, modding helps the game developers understand what they should add into the game next. Whether it is a quality-of-life feature, new enemies or items, or completely unique game modes, modding in Hytale, or any game for that matter, is a good thing for the game that the mod is being made for.
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As it is right now, Hytale is a good but still incomplete game. I could only find a little over 10 hours of fun gameplay before getting burnt out. At a $20 minimum price point, that is pretty good amount of content. The “Knowledge” system that allows you to unlock teleportation is cool but seems pointless because there is no clear final objective to work toward. Therefore, the only thing to do is explore the world and work toward end game equipment, but after you have had your fill of that, there is not much more to do.
Considering Hytale is still an early access game, a lack of content is okay. Between the release of the game and me writing this review, Hytale has already received a few major updates to add small amounts of new content and fix bugs. That is a great update cadence, and if it continues, this game will be full of content very soon. In conclusion, the constant development updates and the bustling modding community are great signs for the future content I am confident Hytale can give the gaming community. Even if Hytale does not meet expectations right now, give it couple of years and it may even be able to compete with Minecraft.
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Matt
New video game, movie, or TV show? Matt probably has it on his radar, and he might even be in the middle of reviewing it. This digital entertainment enjoying dude is a Content Writer during work hours, then plays games, watches movies, binges shows, and writes about all of it in his free time.