'I have no regrets saving Hytale,' says co-founder who purchased the game from Riot and released it just two months later: 'It's been the most challenging but rewarding experience of my life'

Today marks one week since the early access release of Hytale, the Minecraft-like that was famously rescued from oblivion earlier this year by original co-founder Simon Collins-Laflamme. By all appearances it's been a very successful rebirth, and Collins-Laflamme underscored that feeling with a message on X saying he has "no regrets" about resurrecting the game.

It was a sticky situation for a while: Riot's decision to cancel Hytale and close Hypixel Studios after seven years of work (and for reasons that will probably never be entirely clear) seemed a definitive end to the story, but a seemingly faint hope that someone would step in to save the day became reality when Collins-Laflamme struck a deal to reacquire the whole thing in November 2025. The reborn studio managed to get the game out the door just two months later, and while it's still notably very early access, it's also pretty good.

"It’s now been 7 days since early access launch and I can confidently say that I have no regrets saving Hytale, it’s been the most challenging but rewarding experience of my life," Collins-Laflamme wrote.

"Thank you everyone for the amazing support, and a big thank you for the rebuilt Hytale team for trusting me to get this to the finish line in just a few months. I haven’t been involved with Hytale development for many years and coming back was a big unknown and risk for me, and my family. I fully trusted the people and it just worked. Amazing team, every single one made a big difference."

Hytale isn't on Steam so we don't have access to concurrent player numbers, but it sure seems like it's going well. The day before early access release Collins-Laflamme said pre-purchases had "officially secured the next two years of development costs," and when it launched the following day it became the most-watched game on Twitch, with more than 420,000 viewers. Modders are doing some amazing things with it too.

But none of that was assured in advance, and there was real risk in the venture: Riot Games, with nearly-limitless resources, couldn't get the job done, and while there seemed to be a high level of demand for the game, there also seemed to be a high level of demand for a theatrical re-release of Morbius, and we all know how that worked out. (And in case you don't know, it did not work out well.) Given all that, I'd say Collins-Laflamme deserves a little bit of a victory lap, even if it is just reassuring Hytale fans that everything worked out as they'd hoped.