cross-posted from: https://piefed.ca/c/hytale/p/450908/hytale-is-out-now-in-early-access
Note: Not my screenshot
It’s been over 7 years since the game was announced, and after being cancelled by Riot and bought back by the original devs, against all odds it is FINALLY playable!
The game was supposed to come out in an hour but it seems the devs released it early. I’ll wait and see some early gameplay but it looks like I might buy it on launch day. Feels surreal that the wait is finally over.
No, this is the first time it has been available to the public. It was acquired by Riot Games several years into development, they decided to scrap most of the original work and start over in a new game engine, work on the new engine severely delayed reimplementation of previously completed features, which kept pushing the release timeline back, and eventually Riot canned the project.
Last year the original founder purchased the rights to the game from Riot, they went back to the original engine, and they got a working early access build out in like six months.