Hytale early access is humming along tremendously well, and I find myself frequently pulled back in to toy around with the new sandbox game born of Minecraft modders, despite fully intending to save my playtime for its 1.0 release. Hypixel founder Simon Collins-Laflamme and his team have been pumping out regular updates with a wealth of improvements one after another, including plenty of welcome quality-of-life changes. However, the Hytale boss warns that some of these additions are designed to act as quick, temporary fixes, and that you shouldn't get too comfortable with the likes of infinite water when it arrives.

Read the full story on PCGamesN: Don't get too used to all of Hytale's helpful changes: "The way you play today is going to look very different a year from now"

Hytale is about to go live on early access, and you can play the game if you're on a PC.

The upcoming game was on the chopping block last year when Riot Games canceled the project. Since then, things have improved for the better as Hypixel founder Simon Collins-Laflamme managed to secure the publishing rights.

While the early access isn't available for free, joining it is pretty simple.

How to join Hytale early access

Hytale's early access version won't be available on Steam. While the game could appear on Steam in the future, that's not going to happen anytime soon. If you want to start playing the early access on Jan. 13, your only option is the game's official website.

There are three different editions available for purchase. All three editions guarantee you instant access to the game, along with a bunch of goodies. But that's pretty much all you need to do. Go to the website, select your edition, confirm your purchase, and you're good to go.

Hytale's early access release date

Hytale is releasing worldwide on Jan. 13 (in early access). It's only going to be available on PC, and you can only get your copy from the website. As of writing, there's no confirmation about Steam availability, likely because of the ongoing standalone early access process.

All Hytale editions and what they offer

Standard

• Game access
• Username Reservation Lock
• Exclusive Standard Cape
• Forest Guardian Set
• Voyager Set
• Savanna Scout Set

Supporter

• Game access
• Username Reservation Lock
• Exclusive Standard Cape
• Forest Guardian Set
• Voyager Set
• Savanna Scout Set
• Exclusive Supporter Capes
• Featherbound Set
• Scavenger Set
• Arctic Scout Set
• Explorer Goggles

Cursebreaker

• Game access
• Username Reservation Lock
• Exclusive Standard Cape
• Forest Guardian Set
• Voyager Set
• Savanna Scout Set
• Exclusive Supporter Capes
• Featherbound Set
• Scavenger Set
• Arctic Scout Set
• Explorer Goggles
• Exclusive Cursebreaker Capes
• Hope of Gaia Set
• Void Hero Set
• Pop Star Set
• Voidbearer Set

All three editions are expected to receive more content in the days to come, but the exact items are yet to be revealed.

The post How to play Hytale in early access appeared first on Destructoid.

Developed by Wishes Ultd., Greg Lobanov, Alexis Dean-Jones, Lena Raine, Madeline Berger, and A Shell in the Pit, Chicory: A Colorful Tale is a top-down adventure game in a coloring book world full of vibrant, animal-like characters. In the world of Picnic Province, Chicory, superstar artist and wielder of the Brush, is missing, and all the color in the land vanished with her. As Chicory's biggest fan, players are tasked with picking up the Brush and filling in for her, using their newfound painting powers to explore, solve puzzles, make friends, and draw on anything. It's the perfect blend of The Legend of Zelda's iconic puzzle-solving progression and Animal Crossing's cozy charm, and yet it is still somehow one of the gaming industry's best-kept secrets.

With just a couple of days to go before Hytale attempts to do what Riot Games couldn't (release), Simon Collins-Laflamme and the Hypixel Studios team continue to showcase some of the features the long-delayed crafting game will include at launch next week. Much of the recent focus has been on player creation features, with the Entity Tool - part of its larger Creative Tooling menu - being the latest.

Read the full story on PCGamesN: Hytale's creative tools let you wedge a live animal into a wall, and the implications for player-made worlds are huge

How do Hytale mods work? The Minecraft mod community is perhaps one of the biggest around, with new mods still arriving on a daily basis, over ten years since the blocky sandbox game's initial release. From subtle aesthetic changes to full-on gameplay mods, you can find it all, so of course, the question of how Hytale mods work surrounds the release of the unofficial Minecraft spin-off. Hytale comes from the creators of the immensely popular Hypixel Minecraft server, and maintains the block-game look and style the team is already used to working with. As such, the comparisons to games like Minecraft, and Minecraft itself, are natural. When it comes to modding, then, there's a lot to live up to, but Hypixel has been very forthcoming on the subject, and we know modding is available from day one of early access. Here's what we know so far.

Read the full story on PCGamesN: Hytale mods - how they work and what we want to see

Despite seeming close to death just a couple of months ago, we're now just days away from Hytale arriving in very early access. There's been huge buzz around the Minecraft rival for years, but since being prised from the clutches of Riot Games, the hype has reached new levels. Despite its art style, I've always been struck by how beautiful Hytale looks, but apparently, it'll look even better soon - and things will get much easier when it comes to creating and editing your own cubic kingdoms. V2 of Hytale's world generation system will "redefine the block-game genre," according to Hypixel Studios' top dog - and although it'll launch with V1, it'll offer you small glimpses of V2 worlds.

Read the full story on PCGamesN: Watch out Minecraft, Hytale says its new world generation system will "redefine the block game genre"

After multiple delays, troubled development, and publisher drama, Hytale is finally launching on PC in early access in just a couple of days. Its development story is one for the books, and there’s a lot of excitement behind the launch. You don’t have to wait much longer now.

If you want to know when Hytale launches in your region, here are the release dates, times, and a countdown timer to make the wait a little easier.

Hytale blocks up in early access this month, having swiftly gone from thing in need of ressurection to thing that's coming out. As such, the team of devs led by original Hypixel co-founder Simon Collins-Laflamme are firmly in promo mode, with the world generation mechanics they've just posted a deep dive into clearly being an aspect of the game they think'll be key to its appeal.

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Cubey sandbox crafter Hytale launches into early access next Tuesday, January 13th, after a dicey few months in which it was cancelled, bought out by the original developers, and revived like a majestic square-beaked phoenix. It’ll also have a native Linux version, allowing anyone fed up with Microsoft’s continued bullshit to play it on a system running something that isn’t an increasingly bloated or prematurely abandoned Windows.

There are caveats, mind. In a Xitter post announcing the Linux version, Hypixel co-founder and tech director Kevin Carstens – well spotted by Gaming on Linux – stresses that it’ll be an "experimental" endeavour, potentially susceptible to bugs specific to different distributions (sub-versions) of the open-source OS. And the Steam Deck, which runs the Linux-based SteamOS, is in a trickier position still. Carstens explains that limited testing on a docked Deck, with the handheld aided by a mouse and keyboard, suggests it can run local singleplayer fine, though it’s "not officially recommended" as a Hytale-playing device as the game currently lacks controller support.

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Readers, you disgust me. How many videogames do you need? I spend all year heaping your plate with digital comestibles, and then you rock up at the arse end of December, clamouring for a "selection box" like a flock of gannets.

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Still fresh off of being bought from Riot and revived by a team lead by Hypixel co-founder Simon Collins-Laflamme, Hytale now has an early access release date. The Minecrafty sandbox emerges from the cave it's spent years exploring early next year, with pre-orders kicking off next month.

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Minecraft has reigned supreme over a niche genre that it essentially made. It drew the lines in its own sand and stayed there for over a decade, with no one being the wiser. But now, with a game rising from the ashes like a phoenix, Minecraft could finally get some real competition.

Enter: Hytale, the game Riot Games purchased, killed, and then sold back to its original owners. It has gone through a decade of ups and downs, five years at Riot Games, and is now in the hands of those who initially created it. And in this entire decade, it's never been closer to release than it is now, or so says Simon Collins-Laflamme, the creator of Hypixel and Hytale, who is now leading development.

From videos released by Hypixel over the past few days, we can determine that Hytale is not fooling around. It has significantly expanded combat, movement, and mechanics over Minecraft, and appears to be an overall upgraded and modernized version of Notch's masterpiece. And that tracks with Hytale itself evolving out of Minecraft, first as the wildly popular Hypixel server, and now as a standalone game.

Though many thought the game would never see the light of day after entering a state of limbo while handled by Riot Games, Hytale now has a real chance to shake up the foundations laid by Minecraft for, well, itself. It has been the sole game in this niche voxel-based survival crafting genre and, while there have been notable attempts at taking over some of its market share, it's remained a dominant force in gaming for well over a decade.

A prominent example is A Vintage Story, which takes liberal inspiration from Minecraft, but makes the game much more challenging and focused on the survival aspect, complicating everything that was streamlined in the latter. Of course, this adds loads of depth and mechanical intricacy to the game, but it does largely alienate a more casual, laid-back, and, most importantly, young audience.

With over 230 million copies sold across basically every imaginable platform, Minecraft is also the best-selling game of all time, which is a title hardly any game will be able to beat.

But Hytale stands to shift the tides.

Naturally, I do not expect (nor should anyone, really) that Hytale will dethrone Minecraft. The latter has become somewhat of a cultural cornerstone in gaming and a title on which many of us have been brought up. Everyone and their dad had a squad of friends way back when making a new survival server, playing until they got bored, and leaving the game for a year before repeating the process. It's a shrine, a temple we all go back to every once in a while to reminisce about the good old days.

But what Hytale can do is provide an alternative. A better, more complex, more detailed, and more, well, fun experience that takes what Minecraft has done and ups the ante in every imaginable way.

By inviting the community to pitch ideas and help develop them, Hypixel is also involving the players on a scale never seen in Minecraft, and the low $19.99 price, alongside no charges for servers for at least two years, will substantially expand the community side of things and speed up Hytale's establishment as the go-to co-op survival crafting game.

This is an uphill battle, and it remains to be seen how Hytale will go about it. What I'm sure of is that, based on just how popular the game already is without even being released, the market, and this niche Minecraft-adjacent genre, are in for an earthquake.

And, as always, that can only lead to good things for the player. More competition means more development, innovation, and progress, and God knows Minecraft needs all of that.

The post Minecraft might finally get the competitor the industry so desperately needs appeared first on Destructoid.

Cheers have been heard across the internet, with jubilations that, yes, Hytale has been saved from cancellation.

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Rebecca Heineman, one of the co-founders of Interplay Entertainment - a key programmer as well as the designer of The Bard's Tale 3 - has passed away. She was 62 years old.

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Hypixel Studios have shared vast details about plans for modding in Hytale, which will make it easy for players to access and enjoy.

The post Hytale’s Modding Strategy Makes it Easier For Players to Access appeared first on Insider Gaming.

Highly anticipated details for the early access release date of Hytale are right around the corner, Hypixel Studios announced.

The post Hytale Early Access Release Date Announcement Coming Next Week appeared first on Insider Gaming.