What Hytale Adventure Mode Actually Is (And Why It's Not in Early Access)

If you’ve been following Hytale since the 2018 trailer dropped, you probably remember the quest-driven RPG experience that got everyone excited. Structured narrative, meaningful NPC interactions, biome-specific storylines - the whole package that positioned Hytale as “Minecraft meets RPG” design.

That’s not what’s launching on January 13.

What you’re getting instead is Exploration Mode, which is closer to Minecraft’s survival experience than the trailer suggested. This isn’t bait-and-switch - Hypixel Studios has been remarkably transparent about it. Co-founder Simon has repeatedly told people “the game isn’t good yet” and warned that early access will feel incomplete. But the message hasn’t landed everywhere, and plenty of people still think they’re getting the full Adventure Mode experience on day one.

They’re not. Here’s what’s actually launching, why it’s different, and when (or if) the rest might arrive.

What Adventure Mode Was Supposed To Be

The 2018 trailer showed a game where you’d progress through a structured world with actual narrative depth. Not just “explore and build whatever” but quests, storylines, choices that affect your gameplay later on. You’d interact with NPCs who had personalities and motivations beyond standing around as shop interfaces. Different biomes would have their own story arcs and challenges.

Think less “freeform sandbox” and more “Skyrim but with blocks.” That combination is what got people excited - Minecraft’s creative freedom plus the progression and purpose you get from a proper RPG.

The trailer showed dungeon crawling with boss fights, cinematics that suggested actual plot, and a world that felt lived-in rather than procedurally empty. Adventure Mode was the pillar that made Hytale feel like an evolution of the genre rather than just another Minecraft-like.

What Exploration Mode Actually Is

Exploration Mode is what’s launching on January 13, and it’s fundamentally different.

You get procedurally generated worlds with biomes, resources to gather, building mechanics, and combat. There are NPCs - the devs mention over 100 of them - but “many aren’t properly configured yet” according to their own November update. What that means in practice: you’ll see them, but they won’t necessarily do much.

The world generation is version 1, not the more advanced iteration shown in previous dev blogs. It works, it creates playable terrain, but it’s the early version. You’re getting “isolated gameplay scenarios that hint at future systems” rather than a cohesive experience.

If you’ve played Minecraft survival mode, that’s the mental model. Spawn in a world, gather materials, build a base, explore caves and structures. The difference is Hytale has more deliberate art direction and promises better combat mechanics. But the loop is similar - you create your own goals rather than following a designed progression path.

Why The Difference Exists

This comes down to Hytale’s messy development history.

Riot Games bought Hypixel Studios in 2020 and decided to rebuild the entire engine for cross-platform support. That new engine - written in C++ to work on consoles, mobile, everything - was in development for roughly three years. By mid-2025, it still didn’t have much actual gameplay built on top of it. Riot estimated it would take another two years before early access would even be possible.

Riot cancelled the project in June 2025.

The original founders bought Hytale back in November and made a call: abandon the new engine entirely and return to the “legacy build” from four years ago. That older version was PC-only, written in C#/Java, and had been shelved when they pivoted to the cross-platform rewrite. It was “barely playable” according to recent dev posts, but it actually existed as a functional prototype.

The team spent weeks merging over 300 GitHub branches to get that legacy build into a launchable state. It worked. They committed to shipping it as-is rather than waiting another two years to rebuild everything from scratch.

Here’s the thing: that legacy build never had Adventure Mode fully implemented. It was a prototype. The quest systems, the narrative framework, the properly configured NPCs - those were all planned for later development that never happened because they pivoted to the engine rewrite.

So when they went back to the legacy build, they got a working sandbox with exploration and building. They didn’t get the RPG layer that was supposed to sit on top of it.

When Adventure Mode Might Arrive

No timeline exists. The devs haven’t given even a rough estimate.

What we know: there’s a dedicated team working on Adventure Mode during early access. It will expand “throughout early access” with quests, narrative content, and NPC systems. But Hypixel’s leadership has been clear that they’re not rushing to a 1.0 release. They’ve committed to funding the game for 10 years. Patience is built into the plan.

For context, Simon has said early access will likely last “at least a few years.” Adventure Mode could arrive in six months. It could arrive in two years. We don’t know, and the team isn’t making promises they might not keep.

What This Means For Day One Players

You should pre-order if you’re excited about modding, running a server, or playing with early-stage systems. The creative tools launch alongside the game, and server support is there from the start. If you loved Minecraft during the alpha/beta era when things were janky but full of potential, this is that energy.

You should wait if you’re expecting the experience from the 2018 trailer. That game doesn’t exist yet. It might exist eventually, but January 13 isn’t that day.

The reality a lot of people will hit: play intensely for a few weeks, build some cool stuff, then step away until more systems arrive. That’s not a criticism - it’s what “genuine early access” means. You’re paying $20 to participate in active development, not to play a finished game.

The folks who’ll have the best time on January 13 are the ones going in with realistic expectations. The game is unfinished. The devs have said this explicitly. If you’re okay with that - if you want to watch it develop and contribute feedback along the way - then Exploration Mode has enough there to be interesting.

If you want a polished RPG experience, check back in six months or a year and see where things stand.

The Bottom Line

The game launching on January 13 is not the game from the 2018 trailer. Not yet, anyway.

Adventure Mode - the quest-driven RPG layer that made Hytale feel different from every other voxel sandbox - isn’t ready. What you’re getting is Exploration Mode: procedural worlds, building, combat, and early versions of systems that will eventually support more complex gameplay.

Hypixel’s transparency about this is actually refreshing. Most studios would hype up early access and downplay the gaps. Simon has been telling people “don’t pre-order if you’re not comfortable with bugs and incompleteness.” That kind of honesty deserves credit.

Set your expectations accordingly and you’ll have a much better time. Go in expecting the trailer experience and you’ll be disappointed. Go in expecting a playable prototype with interesting bones and a long runway ahead, and you’ll probably find enough to stay engaged.

We’re obviously biased, but WinterNode exists because we wanted hosting that didn’t nickel-and-dime people. All our Game Servers are priced at $1.99/GB of RAM - we don’t charge extra for CPU usage, storage space, or basic features that other hosts mark up.

We’ll have Hytale server hosting available on launch day. Everything’s backed by our 48-hour refund policy, so there’s no risk in testing things out.

Got questions? Our support team responds to tickets with actual humans, and we’re active on Discord if you prefer chatting there. We also have a Hytale section in our help center where we’ll be adding setup guides as the game develops.