Newly-released sandbox adventure game Hytale originated as a Minecraft mod, Hypixel, only to eventually be spun off and transformed into the early access, standalone game we now know. But even so, I don’t think anyone had “Minecraft x Hytale crossplay” on their Bingo card.
Bedrock / Pocket <-> @Hytale <-> Java pic.twitter.com/RCBsbRtjd3
— iamcxv7 (@iamcxv711) January 19, 2026
This wizardry comes from modder u/ssquadteam, also known as iamcxv7, a 15-year-old modder who has also managed to get things like Windows 95 running in Hytale and, separate from the guy who did it pre-launch, Doom. iamcxv7 has managed to figure out how to get Hytale and Minecraft to talk to one another so that players in one can play alongside players in the other, seeing one another’s characters rendered in their own game’s style, interact, build, chat, and even fight one another.
What. On. Earth. How? I’m not savvy enough to parse the technicalities behind this, but here’s iamcxv7’s explanation for it: “It’s all just Packet Trickery. You could say I am running a Minecraft Server in the Hytale JVM which uses the Coordinate System of the Hytale World (As its the same) As well as takes a Snapshot of the Hytale World and reconstructs it and then send it to to the Client via Packets”
But a bit more simply, what’s cool here is that Hytale and Minecraft are so similar in how their worlds are constructed and what kinds of things they invite players to do that gameplay in one can easily map to the other. There’s still some work to do: the mod isn’t public yet, as iamcxv7 says it’s still “really unstable” and there are some features, such as world generation and how to render certain blocks that exist in Hytale but not Minecraft, still missing. Given that Hytale is only a week old, this feels extremely reasonable! The fact that this is going to be possible at all is brain-breaking enough.
Hypixel Studios co-founder Simon Collins-Laflamme shared an update today, saying that saving the game after it was dropped by Riot Games last year was “the most challenging but rewarding experience of my life.” Previously, Collins-LaFlamme had called the game’s salvaging a “damn miracle” after years of development, scope increase, and delays. Prior to the launch, Collins-Laflamme said that Hytale had already made enough money to cover the next two years of development. And those next two years stand to be busy ones, with Hypixel already working on Update 2 for the game later this week.
If you’re heading into Hytale, check out IGN’s comprehensive Hytale Progression Guide for a step-by-step walkthrough on how to get copper, thorium, adamantite, and more. To get around Hytale’s Zones and Biomes fast, you’ll need to know how to set up and use teleporters – and if you’d like to experiment with what the sandbox game can do, use Hytale commands to bend reality to your will, or install Hytale mods to add new creations to your game.
Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. Got a story tip? Send it to [email protected].
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