Hypixel Studios' much-anticipated upcoming game Hytale has a new release window – and it's not soon.
In a new development update, the first this year, the team explain what they've been working on in silence over the past half year.
The blog post starts off with the important news – Hytale will not be ready until 2023 at the earliest, and it could very well take longer.
The original release date for Hytale, announced in 2019, was 2021, which the team subtly rescinded last December. Even before that the team had anticipated a 2019 release, but stretched this out after the game's announcement trailer received over 50 million views.
Hypixel Studios offer several reasons for this long delay. The first is that the scope of what we can do has expanded
– the studio wants to do more with their game.
The second is that Hypixel Studios want the game to release on desktop, console and mobile simultaneously – previously it was only in development for PC, though a mobile and console release was planned for after release on PC.
The studio want the game released on all platforms simultaneously as the community would ultimately find itself split across versions and devices
if they didn't, like what has happened to the two main Minecraft editions.
This expanse in scope means making major changes to Hytale's engine
to run on more playforms, necessitating this delay.
In the post the team also say they will now stop releasing weekly screenshots onto the game's Twitter account, because the major technical changes [...] will mean that, for a time, it will be more complicated to produce screenshots and clips that accurately reflect the experience that players will have
.
Hypixel Studios end the blog post with details about new features. These include combat being revamped with new metrics and effects, advancements to creature AI to have enemies make smarter decisions, and a new piece from the game's soundtrack.