Hypixel Studios made Hytale Update 1 available to test on January 16, 2026 as a pre-release build. The patch touches world content, combat, crafting, and performance, and the studio says it may cherry-pick features if the full update cannot reach the live build before the weekend.
Founder Simon Collins-Laflamme warned the patch is larger than expected and could be hard to push to release immediately. “It’s a larger patch than I was expecting, so it will be tricky to roll out today to the release build, given the number of new players we have coming in,” he said. “I will try to cherry-pick the most-wanted features if we can’t make the full update today.”
The change that has generated a lot of chatter is a set of lighting and placement tweaks. Night now ends roughly an hour and a half earlier. Players can place torches while dual-wielding. That lets explorers and builders light tunnels and bases without having to drop an item or swap hand states first. Zone four received a major content pass. It now includes dinosaurs and improved atmosphere and spawning. Hypixel also repaired villages, outposts and dungeons, and adjusted environmental damage across the world.
Combat changes aim to make melee feel more consistent. Melee attacks should land more reliably after this update. Lava and burn damage have been tuned. Players can clear burns by using water, while fire creatures have been made immune to fire damage. Crafting and inventory systems saw a number of quality of life updates. Backpacks are now cheaper and easier to craft. Workbenches can pull materials from chests at twice the previous distance. Processing hide into leather is faster, which helps speed up early backpack progression. The team also made early balance adjustments to food and farming to address outliers.
Audio and visual polish is included. New and updated sound effects were added for mining. Particle effects were refined for actions such as breaking ore and drinking potions. Performance improvements should speed up chunk loading for players who use a high view distance, and several safeguards and fixes were implemented for high field of view setups. Customization options were expanded with new face and hair choices, though Hypixel notes those will not appear until the full-release build goes live. Server command improvements were promised for teleport, give, whitelist and ban. The update also adds what the team calls a “cute secret new NPC” for creatives and modders.
Players who want to test the pre-release can opt in from the launcher. Select the Patchline drop-down and pick “pre-release.” Feedback and bug reports should be posted to the game’s Discord channel dedicated to pre-release testing, where preliminary patch notes are also available. A full set of notes is due with the update’s final release.
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Hytale
Developed by Hypixel Studios
