I like hightailing. I like that it plays smoother and has more weight than Minecraft, but also matches the exploratory high of creeping through haunted caves or stumbling upon unplundered ancient ruins. I like that it can be done effortlessly on the steam deck. And I like the pace of updates. At the current pace, we’re getting one substantive patch per week.
It’s fair to say that for an early access game like Hytale, regular content insertion is essential. Like it or not, that sense of purpose is currently driven solely by the primate brain’s desire to climb rare mineral formations and upgrade workbenches, making the promised RPG-style adventure mode a distant prospect at best. I don’t even mind waiting or playing in the meantime. The most interesting thing about a game is rarely its finished state. Inside Hytale itself, I wish its unfinished state hadn’t been so loudly advertised with so many hilariously sarcastic “Work In Progress” signs.
Image credit: Rock Paper Shotgun/Hypixel Studios
WIP signs depicting helmeted forest goblins can be found wherever Hytale tries to hint at future features that haven’t yet launched in the current build. These are slightly preferable to the usual early access strategy of just slapping “coming soon” text into the UI. Since it’s a physical object, you can use mods to create it yourself before you self-deprecatingly place the object in front of your homemade survival hut. Otherwise, they are there to cause disappointment. Swing open the door of a sanctuary you stumble upon, discover the entrance to an underground dungeon, or just about anywhere in the Forgotten Temple hub zone and you’ll encounter two painted wooden planks rather than an adventure.
This is jarring in a game where exploration and discovery (even in the absence of more organized quests) are two of its biggest strengths. It’s only been a few hours and I’m already tired of the build-up-and-shrink routine of finding a building that looks delicious only to end up being closed for construction. The disappointment inflicted by that dumb WIP villain is so great that my reservoir of goodwill towards Hytale would undoubtedly have been much lower had such a structure not existed in the first place. Wouldn’t it be better for the players to wander around an empty forest for 10 minutes and start thinking there’s nothing to do there, rather than popping a sign down and removing all doubt?
Image credit: Rock Paper Shotgun/Hypixel Studios
To be fair, balancing expectations management with the realities of development is something that makers of early access games have struggled with for years. As far as I know, there has never been a consensus on the lesser of these two evils: making fun of something unfinished or leaving things completely alone. I also accept that the planned but unfinished features that I am proposing are not hinted at are riskier from a business perspective. Early Access adopters may abandon the game if future additions are unknown, and the WIP sign serves as an in-game IOU, a reassuring physical record that more games are in development. I also honestly admit that what the sign represents is not currently ready.
However, scattering them around the world can also serve as a reminder that the game you really want doesn’t exist yet. That in itself is not a catastrophic situation, especially if what is already there is enjoyable in itself. Hytale often does, too. But even that enjoyment requires a certain amount of suspension of disbelief, a willingness to put aside what-if thoughts and focus entirely on the current state of the game. No matter how cute it is, it’s much more difficult if you keep apologizing for the missing parts.
