After all these years it’s finally here, Hytale. The supposed ‘Minecraft Killer’ and passion project for those at Hypixel Studios after it was initially cancelled by their parent company Riot Games. Now it’s back into indie hands, and it’s been officially released into early access. Is the hype worth it, or is this a project to skip out on? Read on to find out!
Firstly, as a Minecraft-like you can imagine there isn’t really a narrative or story here, however not only is there a supposed ‘Adventure Mode’ planned for the future which will actually be a narrative experience but even in the standard Survival Mode there’s some semblance of worldbuilding with various items having descriptions hinting towards old and existing civilisations, a system that allows you to record enemies and creatures into an encyclopedia-like system which I presume in future will also include lore and other small elements that really says to me there’s a lot more to the world here than it may initially seem. Obviously this will be something that has to be expanded upon in future, but there’s absolutely a solid foundation to the creation of an actually interesting and lore-rich world here, and I’m excited to see how it develops.
Presentation-wise, well, this is a Minecraft-like so as you can probably imagine, it’s blocky. Rather than maintaining the simplistic but iconic style of Minecraft however this opts for a more details voxel look with greater emphasis on smaller shapes, angles and details. It essentially looks and feels like a hugely modded Minecraft with a greater emphasis on popping colours, detailed environmental pieces and a greater variety of things to see in the world. As an example, different enemy factions have unique looks, items, blocks and entire structures made to resemble their group which really adds to the feeling of this being a developed RPG world you are living in. Alongside this the water physics, lighting and character models all are much improved, with special mention to the character creator allowing you to make a variety of more defined 3D models rather than the paintbrush tool style of Minecraft, but with that being stuck to pure 2D visuals. There’s obviously more variety in Minecraft, and thus more customisability, but Hytale does its best to give you a large variety of customisation. The music too was actually very lovely to listen to. It’s certainly a lot more standard fantasy-style than Minecraft’s quiet but effective tracks but it allowed each area you visited to feel more distinct and atmospheric. As an example, going underground and finding a volcanic cave played appropriately foreboding and hellish background music to make adventuring in these caves more unnerving and exciting. I don’t know if it will ever be as iconic as Minecraft’s legendary soundtrack, but for a game that clearly wants to aim for more of an RPG style, it certainly hits the nail on the head.
Gameplay is where most will of course feel familiarity, it’s Minecraft with extra stuff. Actually it feels a bit more like old-school Alphas and Betas of that game with it being a bit more mysterious and simple at current. the biggest differences are actually mostly quality of life improvements, as well as a completely different combat system. Things like batch crafting, grabbing materials from nearby chests to craft, recipes, easily cutting down trees and all that are excellent additions that are clearly aimed at Minecraft veterans that use mods to add these features into the game. The combat system is a lot more action-focused with a stamina meter for actions such as power attacks, blocking and different combat styles for different weapons, including ultimate attacks. It all feels very similar to an Elder Scrolls game, which is perhaps why I like it so much. These combine with the much more active world filled with various NPC factions, both friendly and not, to make for a much more interesting world to explore even at this early access stage. Of course, because this as made by the people who run the most popular servers in Minecraft, multiplayer is also a core focus with server hosting, world sharing, commands and a lot more natively within the game to make sharing worlds with your friends, or large MMO-like servers simple and easy to run. They also promise ‘Minigames’ as a feature to be added later on, which I assume will be based on their most popular server game modes in Minecraft, things like Hunger Games and other such different styles of gameplay. It all seems like an exciting prospect and whilst some may lament the loss of the more challenging initial entry into a game like this due to the amount of quality of life features it has it certainly makes for an easier onboarding process and leaves a lot more to possibility for players to stay invested rather than just start, die, have no idea what to do and stop playing.
There are some negatives from my time playing this, though due to the nature of this being an early access these are of course subject to change. In fact, one of the things that irritated me initially, not being able to use items in the off-hand such as torches, actually was patched in to work as I was writing this, so the devs are definitely working hard to make the game work. Firstly, as is to be expected, the game is a wee bit lacking in content, with plenty of ‘Work in Progress’ signs to show that the stuff they wanted to include is not here yet. You’re certainly buying into a game in progress at current and I don’t know if the price will jump up the closer it gets to full release. it’s not like there isn’t things to do, there’s a clear progression system with plenty to explore, and of course there’s multiplayer servers to get your teeth stuck into, but just don’t come into this expecting to have a fully developed game ready to play. I also don’t know if this title is truly defined enough to be considered that different from Minecraft. It’s of course very heavily based on it, and improved in many ways, but I just don’t know if a game like this can really stand out in a sea of other clones, even if it certainly is refined to a great degree. I presume the multiplayer-focus and minigame systems will help give the game its main identity, but as it stands right now, it’s a prettier and more detailed Minecraft, but that’s all it is at current.
Despite my above misgivings I’m having a great time with this game. It really reminds me of my old times playing Beta Minecraft and with it being clear the devs are going to keep working on this over time (this certainly isn’t a Cube World situation) this is a promising start to what could potentially be a huge game. Would I recommend it as of now? It depends I guess if you want to jump into the early parts of an on-boarding process while it’s still very clearly reminiscent of its inspiration. I had fun with it, I’ll no doubt continue to have fun with it as it goes through the Early Access stages and it may very well get me to jump back into a bit of creative building. Hytale is fun, and I’d recommend it to fans of the block-building creative genre. God I should just stick to the term Minecraft-clones…