Destructoid Checkpoint: A tale of two Hytales

Being a veteran gamer, I try not to get too attached to unreleased games anymore. I allow trailers to entice me, to pique my interest, and to book a game’s place on my “maybe I’ll play it” list, but I do my best not to allow them to crawl too deeply into my heart. 

The games that have taught me this lesson are titles like EITR, Hellraid, Star Wars 1313, and, of course, Hytale. All of them died, or appeared to die, despite my burning desire to play them. Except it seems, Hytale. The cube-based conundrum has risen from the ashes and lives again. 

Color me shook, folks. 

Hytale-ing it out of here

It’s been a great year for games, but the surprise resurgence of Hytale has to be my favorite moment so far. It’s hard to explain why I am so into the idea of the game. Turbo-Minecraft just really tickles me, and I think I long to get a group of my old Minecraft pals back together and dive in.

For many players, Hytale might be a chance to relive their youth, but sadly, I am too old for that to apply here, as I was in my late twenties when Minecraft released. Maybe it will give me a chance to relive a time when my back hurt a little less.

The release date for early access has been confirmed to be January 13, 2026, and the developers are doing everything they can to signal to people that this is the true meaning of early access. Rolling back to a four-year-old build means things might be rough, but it does mean we actually get to play the game that has been bubbling around in the ether since the announcement trailer dropped in 2018. 

The fact that Hypixel was able to buy this project back and get it out of development limbo is just a real feel-good story for me. I understand that they opted to sell it to Riot in the first place, but they did so on the hope and assumption that the game would be developed, released, and supported. Stepping in and saving it from the gaming scrapyard just proves that the folks at Hypixel have a true love for the game, and I am eager to play it.

Clarity around Ubisoft

So, a couple of weeks ago, Ubsioft did an odd thing and delayed financial reporting and requested a halt to trading of their shares. Not much was known about the why, but around these parts, we speculated that it could have been related to loans. Turns out, I was a little right. 

Ubisoft, like all companies, will have substantial loans taken out to increase its working capital. You gotta borrow money to make money in a post-Reaganite world, folks. This then means that they have an EBITDA, or a ratio that shows Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation, and Amortization. As long as this ratio remains balanced within agreed-upon values, the people putting up those loans are happy.

For Ubisoft, things took a turn when they had to change how they recognized revenue from partnership deals. They adopted a new approach that only looked at money earned as it came in; they were no longer assigning the value of the deal upfront from the date of signing.  

This threw their EBITDA out of whack, and the rest is history. Ubisoft's solution to the EBITDA issue was to repay an outstanding 286 million euros in loans early, so it seems that the company is not shy of cash just yet, despite a run of poorly performing titles in recent times. 

It should be noted, however, that it seems the 286 million euros used ot make that payment was sourced from the 1 billion euro investment that Tencent was making, which couldn’t be validated until the EBITDA issue was resolved. It all feels a little bit like going back in time and becoming your own progenitor, but I am not an accountant, thankfully. 

Destiny 2’s Renegades is their Armin Tanzarian moment

Culture critics and people who are smart all know that the downfall of The Simpsons was sown in the second episode of their ninth season, titled The Principal and the Pauper. In this episode, it was discovered that Seymour Skinner was not Seymour Skinner at all, but an imposter called Armin Tanzarian. The real Seymour Skinner appeared and upset the lie that Principal Skinner had been living, shenanigans ensued, and by the end of the episode, the entire joke was that they were never legally allowed to talk about it again.

The episode showed that the writers and showrunners had lost touch with why people like the show. To the writers' room, the Simpson family was the core of the show, but to the audience, the entire cast had appeal, and the character of Seymour Skinner had now been destroyed, pointlessly uprooted, and rewritten for a cheap joke.

Destiny has completely lost the plot with Rengades, a desperate attempt to cram a different IP into their own game. Nothing in Renegades needs a cheap Lightsaber or Kylo Ren knockoff to work within that world and the overall narrative; it’s just that the developers of Destiny appear to have lost touch with their own playerbase. Destiny 2 fans play Destiny for Destiny, and we like the story of Destiny. We enjoy the heroes and the villains, the myths and the legends. Mixing a bunch of “so obvious it’s painful” Star Wars references and designs into the game doesn’t make me feel like the developers love Star Wars; it makes me feel like they have lost confidence in their ability to make a Destiny that matters, and that’s a shame.