Riot Games Cancels Hytale and Axes Development Team
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- Riot Games cancelled Hytale development before its official launch.
- The game’s projected development could not deliver on the marketed promise.
- 150 employees were reportedly laid off from Hypixel Studios.
Riot Games cancelled Hytale’s development prior to the game’s launch. Many members of Hypixel Studios were laid off — Amanda Goodall reports that 150 employees lost their jobs. The news of Hytale’s cancellation was shared via an official update post, written by Hypixel Studios’ co-founder Noxy.
According to the post, Hytale’s development process was incredibly difficult. They had tried finding innovative solutions to adapt to evolving genres and visions set by the industry. But after years of driving forward, it supposedly became clear that the studio could not bring Hytale to life in the way that was marketed.
“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,” the post reads.
Hytale was initially announced in 2018, and was marketed to combine the scope of a sandbox with the depth of a role-playing game. Hypixel Studios is the team behind the Hypixel Minecraft server, which is where the studio’s journey began. In 2020, Riot Games acquired the studio, receiving funding alongside other forms of support from Riot.
