Hytale‘s journey to launch has been rocky, to say the least. The sandbox RPG was canceled by Riot Games in June 2025 after nearly a decade of development, seemingly dead in the water… until the original founders swooped in to repurchase the IP and revive the project, returning to a four-year-old build they’d abandoned years earlier. When the game finally hit early access on January 13, 2026, the developers were refreshingly honest about its state, calling it “raw, unfinished, sometimes broken”.
But viewers showed up anyway. Built by the team behind Minecraft‘s legendary Hypixel server, Hytale promised to blend familiar voxel-based creativity with deeper RPG mechanics, and the live-streaming community turned out in force. The game immediately sparked comparisons to Minecraft, with audiences bouncing between the two trying to figure out which deserved their attention. In this article, we’ll break down how Hytale performed during its first week and explore just how intertwined these two sandbox giants really are.
TL;DR Takeaways by Stream Hatchet:
- Hytale managed to beat out Minecraft in its first day with 3.9M hours watched across all platforms (V.S. 2.7M for Minecraft)
- In the first week of Hytale’s release, 1.2M Twitch viewers checked out both Hytale and Minecraft streams… but 2.1M Twitch viewers only watched Minecraft
- Audiences bombarded chats on Hytale streams with comparisons to Minecraft: Minecraft was mentioned 170K times on Hytale streams
Hytale Pulls Strong Launch Numbers Despite Stop-Start Development
Hytale had a strong debut on live-streaming during its first week of early access. The game pulled in 13.4M hours watched with a peak viewership of 525K concurrent viewers, with 76% of that viewership coming from Twitch. For a game that was literally canceled six months ago, these numbers are pretty remarkable. The strong launch shows that the streaming community was ready to jump in and see what the former Hypixel crew had been building all these years.
The top streamer for Hytale‘s launch week was Spanish variety streamer elxokas with 403K hours watched, followed by Rubius with 243K hours watched and Spreen with 204K. This Spanish-speaking dominance at the top of the charts shows some serious regional interest in the release: Latin American streaming communities have historically gravitated toward sandbox and building games, so it makes sense they’d be excited to dive into what Hypixel Studios cooked up.
What’s interesting about the top 10 is just how diverse the streamer lineup turned out to be. We’ve got big variety streamers sitting alongside dedicated sandbox game creators and VTubers like ironmouse (180K hours watched) and saba (150K hours watched). The fact that Hytale pulled in this wide range of creator types right from launch suggests the game had appeal beyond just one corner of the streaming world.
Part of that appeal likely stems from Hytale‘s day-one modding support. The game launched with robust creator tools through partnerships with CurseForge and Blockbench, and the modding community wasted no time getting creative. One modder even managed to get Doom running inside Hytale before the game officially launched, converting the classic shooter into an 80×60 block display that updates at 20fps. While it admittedly plays “a bit like a broken keyboard,” it’s an impressive showcase of what Hytale‘s modding tools can handle right out of the gate.
The Minecraft Connection Runs Deep: Hytale Challenges The Voxel Giant
Given that both games revolve around voxel-based building, procedurally generated worlds, and sandbox gameplay, it’s worth looking at whether Minecraft‘s massive audience was willing to give Hytale a shot. The overlap turned out to be significant: Around 1.2M registered Twitch viewers watched both games during Hytale‘s launch week, while 2.6M viewers stuck exclusively to Hytale and 2.1M stayed with Minecraft. This means roughly ⅓ of Minecraft‘s audience was curious enough about Hytale to check it out. That’s a pretty healthy crossover rate, showing that despite Minecraft‘s massive dominance in the sandbox space, there’s room for a well-made alternative to pull in viewers who want something fresh but familiar.
Hytale even managed to pull off something impressive on January 13: It actually beat Minecraft in daily viewership, hitting 3.9M hours watched compared to Minecraft‘s 2.7M. That’s a rare feat considering Minecraft consistently sits in the top tier of live-streaming viewership. The victory was short-lived though: By the next day, Minecraft had bounced back to its usual 3M+ range while Hytale dropped to 3.2M, and the gap only widened from there. By January 19, Hytale had fallen to around 800K hours watched while Minecraft was cruising at 3M. This pattern is pretty typical for new game launches: A big spike on day one when everyone’s curious, followed by a gradual decline as viewers return to their comfort zone.
Comparisons Help To Drive Hype Leading Up To Hytale’s Launch
Even before Hytale‘s launch, Minecraft viewers were keeping tabs on the game. Chat mentions of “Hytale” on Minecraft streams stayed relatively low through most of 2025, hovering between 300-600 mentions per month. Things started heating up in June when mentions hit 1.8K, right around the time Riot Games announced the cancellation. That news clearly caught Minecraft viewers’ attention, even if it wasn’t what fans wanted to hear.
Mentions jumped to 5.4K in November when the original founders announced they’d repurchased Hytale and were reviving the project, then climbed to 6.2K in December as more details about the early access launch emerged. But the biggest surge happened in January 2026, with 34.7K mentions once Hytale actually released. That’s a nearly 5X increase from December, showing that Minecraft audiences weren’t just passively aware of Hytale anymore. They were actively discussing it, comparing the two games, and likely debating whether to make the jump.
The comparisons went both ways, and they were relentless. While Hytale was getting mentioned 34.7K times on Minecraft streams, “Minecraft” was being brought up 170K times on Hytale streams during the game’s first week. That’s a ton of cross-talk between the two communities. People clearly weren’t treating these as separate games living in their own lanes. Instead, viewers were constantly stacking them up against each other, trying to figure out which one deserved their time.
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Hytale‘s first week proved that there’s genuine appetite for a Minecraft alternative, even one in rough early access shape. The 13.4M hours watched and the significant audience crossover show that sandbox fans are willing to explore new options when they come from a trusted team.
But the real test is ahead. That sharp viewership drop-off after launch day is typical for new games, but sustaining momentum will require Hypixel Studios to deliver on their promises and keep the content flowing. Being able to convert some much-loved Minecraft streamers to the Hytale cause would help Hypixel Studios to chip away at Minecraft’s stranglehold on the genre. If they can turn this rocky early access period into a polished final product, Hytale has a real shot at carving out its own space alongside Minecraft rather than just living in its shadow.
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