After more than 10 years in development, Hytale early access is here! If you’re just getting started, we’re writing a variety of early-game guides on smelting, setting up servers for friends, and plenty more.
I preferred to go in blind. Hytale is quite obviously heavily Minecraft coded, but developer Hypixel is also doing its own thing in ways big and small, too. Below are seven things in Hytale's early game that surprised me, coming at it specifically from a Minecraft’s player’s perspective. Anything I missed? Have some early-game observations of your own? Leave a comment!
1. Punching down a single tree knocks down the entire thing at once, giving you a pile of wood, sticks, and sap along with it. No floating tree trunks here!
Hytale is very clearly heavily Minecraft-inspired, but one area in which it does feel quite different is in that time-honored opening crafting survival game moment of punching down your first few trees. In Hytale, like Terreria and plenty of other survival games, the whole tree collapses and explodes like a little piñata of wood and resources once you disconnect it from the ground. You'll need all that sap, trust me.
2. Early overworld mobs are tankier than expected
Within my first few minutes in Hytale I had come across squirrels, rabbits, sheep, and even a fox. And although none of them were hard to kill at all (sorry little guys, but I need your pelts for early-game crafting recipes), I was a little surprised at how much HP they seem to have, and how many hits from my first crude sword it took to take them down. I had to chase one rabbit halfway across the plains - they're quite speedy when making their getaway.
3. Ores glint faintly in underground caves
This is truly a tiny detail, but still one I thought was neat. When spelunking in Hytale, if you look carefully, an otherwise pitch-black cave wall or crevasse will glint off distant light sources like your torch if there are any valuable ores present. Helpful!
4. Gear Progression Is a bit more complicated
In my first cave I explored I found plenty of copper ore for Tier 1 armor, but I also found a stack or so of iron ore, for Tier 2 gear. I was initially a little bit disappointed, thinking maybe I could just leapfrog past tier 1 entirely. But crafting weapons and armor in Hytale actually requires a few different raw materials, which I appreciated. Copper armor requires only copper and plant fiber. But Iron requires iron, light leather, and linen scraps. So it looks like I have more mob grinding in my near future.
5. There are more decorative options
Hytale’s crafting system in early access is still very basic (and a little buggy), but coming from Minecraft, I still appreciated some small crafting details like being able to turn raw wood and stone into slanted, tiled roof blocks and half-block-thick walls when building out my starter hut. You can also place shelves on our walls and stick a few decoratives like candles and books on them. By the way - huge fan of how Hytale's crafting benches can see and make use of resources stored in nearby chests.
6. There are promising secrets and surprises
Hytale is what I would describe as an “aggressively” early access game. Most of the time when you come across something interesting in the world like what looks like a dungeon entrance, or a hand-built ruin, you’ll be stopped from entering and shown a literal under construction “work in progress” sign. There is one exception though, which illustrates some of the promise of what is hopefully to come.
Early on I spotted a nearby icon on my map labeled “Forgotten Temple Gateway.” Without spoiling the details, investigating said gateway led to a fight against a unique mob and a portal to a beautiful and entirely unique, hand-crafted location, filled with its own NPCs and points of interest. Hytale for now looks to be very thin on hand-crafted Adventure content, but this tiny taste was an encouraging place to start.
7 Farming Is a Bit More Complex
Although I didn’t get a chance to dive into the feature in detail because I had to go back to (grumble grumble) work, I did get a chance to poke around Hytale’s farming system a bit. So far it looks like, similar to most of Hytale’s other systems, it’s a bit more complex than Minecraft’s. You can craft animal caretaking buildings including chicken coops and beehives, as well as a farming aids like a watering can. Tree saplings and new crop seeds don’t come from harvesting, but instead must be created by spending “Essence of Life,” which seems a bit like a currency you receive when harvesting mature crops.
For now, as a Minecraft veteran - I’ve been playing off and on since there were Secret Friday Updates! - Hytale’s opening few hours are familiar enough and yet still different enough to keep me interested and coming back for more. Be sure to check out our Hytale Review-in-Progress for a far more in-depth look at the game.
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