Hytale’s long, winding road is finally hitting a major moment.

The Minecraft-inspired sandbox RPG officially enters early access tomorrow, January 13, and the studio behind it, Hypixel Studios, is preparing for what could be one of the biggest indie launches in years. In fact, Hytale founder Simon Collins-Laflamme says the team is bracing for over one million players to show up on day one.

Because of that, he’s urging fans to download the Hytale launcher on January 12 and log in early, hoping to reduce the inevitable server chaos when the doors officially open.

A million players on day one sounds bold, but Hytale isn’t a normal indie project. Its original 2018 reveal trailer has over 61 million views, and anticipation has never really died, even after years of development struggles, delays, and near cancellation.

And that’s the part that makes this launch so fascinating.

Hytale’s journey has been… messy. After Riot Games acquired the project in 2020, development stalled. Last November, Riot officially sold the rights back to Collins-Laflamme, saying the move would give players “the best chance” to finally experience the game they’d been waiting for.

Since then, Collins-Laflamme has gone into full rebuild mode. He’s rehired over 40 former and new developers, rebuilt large parts of the game in weeks, and pushed toward early access at an almost absurd pace.

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He’s been painfully honest about the state of things too.

He’s also been very clear about what went wrong over the past four years, saying development time was swallowed by engine rebuilding instead of gameplay, killing momentum, iteration, and player trust.

Despite that, the current build is now playable, fun, and finally ready for the public to touch. Modding tools are live. Servers are open. Creators are being invited in from day one.

This isn’t a polished final product. It’s the start of something being rebuilt in public.

And tomorrow, over a million players may show up to watch it happen.

The Takeaway

Hytale’s early access launch isn’t just another game release, it’s a second chance.

After years of lost time, stalled development, and corporate missteps, the project is back in the hands of the people who started it, moving fast, shipping early, and building with the community instead of behind closed doors. The game will be rough, buggy, and unfinished. But for a lot of players, that honesty, and that momentum, matters more than perfection.

If the servers hold and the vision connects, January 13 could mark the real beginning of Hytale’s story.

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