Dispiriting news came out yesterday, June 23, 2025, that Riot Games has officially canceled the blocky adventure game Hytale which had been under development by Hipixel since 2015.
Prior to Hytale, the team at Hipixel were known for creating a custom Minecraft server. Their server proved to be an early hit in the Minecraft ecosystem and the studio began development on their first standalone game in 2015. Hytale was publicly revealed on December 13, 2025 with a trailer that has received over 61 million views. Riot Games purchased Hipixel Studio on April 17, 2020 and another round of hype swelled around the game. Hytale was originally slated for a 2021 release, but a decision to move to a new game engine and revamp development meant that date had to be pushed back. After 10 years, the game has failed to materialize and Riot Games has decided to pull the plug.
An official post by Noxy, a Co-Founder of Hipixel, outlines why this difficult decision was made. It seems both the growing ambitions for the game, and the ever evolving industry landscape outran the studio’s abilities. This is a familiar story in the MMORPG genre where small teams are unaware of the complexities involved in developing online worlds.
Hytale isn’t the only Riot Games project stuck in perpetual development. Let’s hope the team behind the Riot MMORPG can show progress and thus avoid the executioner’s axe.
An exert from the official cancellation announcement:
Hey Everyone,
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.
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.
Game development is brutally hard – especially when you’re trying to build something original that speaks to a creative, passionate community. Over time, as our vision evolved and the genre matured around us, the bar kept rising. 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…
Further Reading: Official Post