Hytale tops Twitch as most-watched game on early access launch day

Hytale has just launched in early access, and yet it’s already pulling in massive numbers on Twitch, leading the charge as the most-watched game.

Hytale’s development journey hasn’t exactly been the smoothest, but now after almost eight years after its first announcement, the game is finally out.

Despite still being in early access, the game’s popularity has already shot up in a big way. As spotted by PCGamer, it became the most-watched game on all of Twitch upon its release.

The game managed to pull over 420,000 viewers during its early access launch day, with many quickly flocking to try out this sandbox, action-adventure game from Hypixel Studios after almost a decade-long wait.

Hytale hits incredible milestone on its early access launch day

Viewership has since cooled off as the day went on, dropping to around 210,000 viewers at the time of writing.

But even with the drop, the numbers are still massive, especially considering the game isn’t even available on Steam yet and isn’t free-to-play either.

For comparison, the title is still surpassing big contenders in the gaming realm, such as the likes of GTA V, League of Legends, and ARC Raiders.

At the moment, Hytale is only playable through its own launcher. The devs say this doesn’t rule out a Steam release down the line, they just don’t see the need for one right now.

For those unfamiliar, Hytale is a sandbox RPG that blends block-based building with combat, exploration, and mod support. It’s often compared to Minecraft.

Its development started all the way back in 2015, made by the creators of the popular Minecraft server Hypixel. Riot Games later picked up the studio in 2020.

However, after getting delayed several times as its scope grew, Riot Games shut down the studio and canceled the game in 2025.

That wasn’t the case for long, though. In a surprising comeback, Hypixel co-founder Simon Collins-Laflamme later bought back the IP rights and revived development, bringing the game to its current early access state.

While Hytale is currently only available on Windows, versions for Linux and macOS are planned for the future, with console releases expected much later.