Riot acquired Hypixel Studios in 2020, but its anticipated sandbox RPG never materialized.
After more than seven years of work, development of the sandbox RPG Hytale is being cancelled, and developer Hypixel Studios is being closed by parent company Riot Games.
“Today, I shared some incredibly tough news with the Hypixel Studios team: we’re ending development on Hytale and beginning the process of winding down Hypixel Studios over the next few months,” Hypixel co-founder Noxy wrote in the cancellation announcement. “This is not the outcome any of us—at Hypixel or at Riot—wanted. But after years of pushing forward, adapting, and exploring every possible path, it became clear we couldn’t bring Hytale to life in a way that truly delivered on its promise.”
Hytale was first revealed in 2018, at which point it had already been in development “for several years.” In 2020, the studio was acquired by League of Legends developer Riot Games, but a hoped-for release in 2021 was eventually pushed into 2023 “at the earliest,” and a year later it was pushed again.
It sounds like mission creep may have been at the root of Hypixel’s problems. “Over time, as our vision evolved and the genre matured around us, the bar kept rising,” Noxy wrote. “Our technical ambitions grew more complex, and even after a major reboot of the game engine, the team found that Hytale still wasn’t as far along as it needed to be. It became clear we’d need a lot more time to get it to a place where it could support the ambitious vision for the game.
“We looked at reducing scope, adjusting timelines, and finding new angles to keep moving forward. But each of those options would have meant compromising on what made Hytale special in the first place. It wouldn’t have been the game we set out to make. And it wouldn’t have been the game you deserve.”
Noxy said the Hytale team still believes in the game, but acknowledged that Riot was unable to find “investors or acquirers who could continue to help carry Hytale forward.” He also expressed gratitude to Riot for “the years of support and opportunities,” and the “generous severance and resources” being provided to laid-off employees.
The number of people being put out of work by the closure of Hypixel was not disclosed, but the studio’s LinkedIn page describes it as “a team of more than 70 globally.”
Optimists might hope that Hytale could somehow endure: You would think that after so many years sunk into the project, there’d be some kind of foundation on which to continue building, after all. But there are a lot of variables at play in that assumption too, including ownership of Hytale: Riot may not be willing to sink more money into it, but it may also be reluctant to have someone come along and pick up where it left off, taking advantage of the years of work that’s already been done.
The game industry itself, meanwhile, continues to be bizarrely hostile to game developers. We had hoped that 2025 might herald a change after the brutal layoffs of 2023 and ’24, but the cuts have continued more or less unabated: June alone has already seen layoffs at People Can Fly, Jagex, and Mighty Yell.
“Even though we’re closing this chapter, the spirit of Hytale and everything we hoped it could be will stay with us,” he wrote. “We’re proud of what we built, and we’ll carry those lessons forward into whatever comes next.”
Noxy also noted that the Hypixel Minecraft server, which is operated independently of Hypixel Studios, will continue to operate as usual.
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