The long-awaited Hytale just released over 27 minutes of raw creative mode gameplay, and the gaming community is buzzing. After being announced back in 2018 and nearly canceled in June 2025, the voxel sandbox game is back with a vengeance, showing off creative tools that make Minecraft’s vanilla offerings look downright primitive.
Scripted Brushes That Actually Make Sense
The standout feature in Hytale’s creative mode is the scripted brushes system. These are asset-defined brushes that any user or modder can create and share with the community. The gameplay footage shows players dragging these brushes into their inventory and instantly creating complex structures like mountains, grassy paths, and procedurally generated ruins with just a few clicks.
What makes this different from basic building tools is the depth of customization. You can edit these scripted brushes directly in Hytale’s node editor, a visual programming interface that lets you tweak exactly how each brush behaves. Want to adjust the density of your mountain generator or change how ruins decay? It’s all accessible without touching a single line of traditional code.
Creative Tools Built for Serious Builders
Hytale’s creative mode comes packed with professional-grade tools that feel more like game development software than a sandbox game. The quick settings panel adapts based on what tool you’re holding, giving you instant access to flight speed controls, brush settings, inertia adjustments, and even custom laser pointer colors for precision work.
The paintbrush tool alone offers ridiculous amounts of control. You can paint lines, circles, squares, spheres, and more while adjusting material type, shape density, wall thickness, axis locking, and layer masks. The selection tool lets you save prefabs, paste blocks with precision, move entire structures, define regions, regenerate chunks, and even extrude geometry. These aren’t novelty features, they’re genuine workflow improvements.
Flight mechanics get similar attention to detail. You can toggle between hover mode and directional flight, adjust inertia to either stop on a dime or drift at high speeds, and customize everything from your movement controls to your base speed. Whether you’re a careful architect or someone who zooms around massive builds, Hytale adapts to your style.
Prefab Browser and Editor
The prefab system operates in its own dedicated editing environment, letting you load multiple prefabs into an empty world where you can browse, edit, and select them visually before placing them in your actual build. The gameplay demonstration shows the team loading prefab ruins, tweaking them in the isolated editor, then seamlessly pasting them into the main environment.
The paste tool deserves special mention. You can use arrow keys to make frame-perfect placements of complex multiblock structures, or treat prefabs like brushes and stamp them repeatedly across your world. This turns what would normally be tedious copy-paste work into something fluid and intuitive.
Machinima Tools for Content Creators
One of the most impressive reveals is Hytale’s built-in machinima tool, the same system the developers used to create their 2018 announcement trailer. The tool appears as a physical in-game camera item that lets you create camera actors and set keyframes to animate smooth cinematic shots.
Once you place your keyframes throughout your world, you can adjust playback speed, camera settings, and transition timing to get the exact cinematic look you want. The developers mentioned that while the machinima tool has some technical issues to resolve, it’s already functional and will receive major upgrades in the months following launch. For YouTubers and storytellers, having this level of camera control baked into the game is massive.
Model Swapping and Beyond
The player model changer gives you access to over 100 different character models that you can spawn and control in creative mode. The demo shows someone transforming into a corgi model, but the implications go far beyond novelty transformations. Combined with the machinima tools, this opens up possibilities for creating complex scenes with multiple characters, each using different models from Hytale’s extensive library.
Modding Built Into the Foundation
Everything shown in the creative mode presentation ties back to Hytale’s core philosophy that modding should be accessible and powerful. Most elements of the game including blocks, objects, NPCs, world generation, interfaces, and behaviors are driven by data and code that players can modify. The developers are releasing visual programming tools and node-based systems that let creators build complex gameplay without traditional programming knowledge.
The team is even planning to integrate visual programming directly into the 3D world itself, letting you connect levers, doors, generators, and triggers to create adventure maps and encounters right inside Hytale. They cite DOOM SnapMap as inspiration while maintaining full integration with their asset and scripting systems.
Coming Sooner Than You Think
After being nearly shut down in June 2025, Hypixel Studios went independent with a decade-long funding commitment. Early access release date and pricing will be announced before the end of November 2025, with the game expected to launch on Windows PC first. Linux and Mac support will come later, with consoles planned for much further down the line.
The early access version will include exploration mode, creative mode, and full modding support right from day one. The team has been transparent that this is a true early access release, the game won’t be anywhere near finished, and development will continue for at least a few years with no pressure to rush toward a 1.0 release.
FAQs
When will Hytale be released?
Hypixel Studios announced that the early access release date and pricing will be revealed before the end of November 2025. The game is expected to launch in early access soon after the announcement, much sooner than anyone anticipated given the previous development troubles.
What platforms will Hytale be available on?
Hytale will launch first on Windows PC. The team plans to add Linux and Mac support later, with console versions planned for much further down the line. The focus is on getting the PC version right before expanding to other platforms.
What game modes will be available at launch?
The early access version will include exploration mode (the main adventure gameplay), creative mode (with all the building and editing tools), and full modding support. Additional game modes will be added throughout the early access period.
How does Hytale’s creative mode compare to Minecraft?
Hytale’s creative mode includes professional tools like scripted brushes, prefab editors, advanced selection tools, customizable flight modes, and built-in machinima cameras. While Minecraft has mods that offer similar features, Hytale includes these capabilities in the base game without requiring any modifications.
Can I create and share custom content in Hytale?
Yes, modding is built into Hytale’s core design. You can create custom blocks, objects, NPCs, scripted brushes, prefabs, and entire gameplay systems using the included visual programming tools and node editor. All of these creations can be shared with other players.
What are scripted brushes?
Scripted brushes are asset-defined tools that let you paint complex structures like mountains, paths, or ruins with simple brush strokes. Any player or modder can create these brushes and share them with the community, and you can edit them using Hytale’s visual node editor.
Will Hytale have multiplayer and servers?
Yes, Hytale is being developed by Hypixel Studios, the team behind the massive Minecraft Hypixel server network. Multiplayer functionality and server support are core features, though specific details about multiplayer features at early access launch haven’t been fully revealed yet.
How much will Hytale cost?
Pricing has not been announced yet but will be revealed alongside the release date before the end of November 2025. Given that it’s launching in early access with years of development still ahead, expect pricing to reflect its incomplete state.
Conclusion
Hytale’s creative mode showcase proves the game is far more than vaporware or a Minecraft clone. The depth of the building tools, the accessibility of the modding systems, and the attention paid to creator workflows show a team that understands what builders and content creators actually need. After nearly being canceled and seven years of development, Hypixel Studios is finally ready to let players experience what they’ve been working on. The gaming community has been skeptical given the delays and setbacks, but this 27-minute gameplay reveal suggests the wait might actually be worth it. With an early access launch imminent and a decade of funding secured, Hytale has a real shot at becoming the creative sandbox platform many have been waiting for since 2018.