After 8 years, the Minecraft-inspired Hytale is still in the prototyping phase, and fans are running out of patience

gamesradar.com:

The devs behind Hytale, the long-awaited spiritual successor to Minecraft, have just posted a new development update suggesting that the game is still in the prototyping and engine development phase of production. After 8 years in development, many fans aren't seeing this level of progress as a good sign.

You can read the full blog post from developer Hypixel Studios if you want to see all the nitty-gritty details for yourself, but in summary, the devs decided back in 2021 to build "a new custom engine and brought on a development partner to help us do so." Now, in 2023, they're staffing up, continuing to build that new engine, and using the old engine to prototype new gameplay ideas.

Beyond that, the blog doesn't offer a whole lot of concrete info. We see a new design for an NPC race, and get a few details on a central shared online space called the Capital, but if you're hoping for something as substantial as a trailer or even some new in-game screenshots, you're out of luck. The devs that, with the engine switch, the game is in a bit of an "awkward, self-conscious phase."

That hasn't really satisfied fans who've been looking forward to Hytale since its announcement years ago. "This blog post feels like submitting a last-minute school assignment with just the bare minimum to pass," as one Reddit user puts it.

"I don’t like being a doomer but are you serious?" another asks. "They don’t want to show anything because it doesn’t look good in the new engine? They haven’t even ported everything over and half the team isn’t even working with the new engine yet? That doesn’t make me very hopeful that this game is even going to come out. I was expecting a terrible blog post but this is even worse than I thought. Best to not