It’s safe to say Hytale is 2026’s biggest indie hit so far, with the game securely funding the next two years of development before it was even out into early access last week. It seems the idea of a proper competitor to Minecraft was a golden one, but that isn’t stopping modders and passionate tinkerers from putting Minecraft inside Hytale.
On 17th January, X/Twitter user iamcxv7 (Sadat Sahib/ssquadteam on GitHub) posted he’d gotten Minecraft running in Hytale’s world map through “pure pixel data manipulation,” which sounds pretty bonkers and signals the new blocky sensation may have a bright future ahead when it comes to modding and all sorts of experiments.
The achievement was also shared on Reddit, where the full explanation of the process was explained: “No GPU, no OpenGL calls – just pure CPU-based 3D rendering”. In short, no one who’s really into software and creative problem-solving knows what he’s saying, but it’s all impressive if you’re aware of the basics. At the time of writing, the game “runs entirely server-side at 35 FPS with a resolution of 320×240,” so this isn’t a trick of playing a short gameplay video via Hytale and calling it a day. It is an old version of Minecraft (0.30) though. That doesn’t exactly make it any less impressive, however.
Further digging through Sahib’s Reddit profile also reveals other stunners, such as GB and GBC emulation working through the same process (quite convincingly, I must add) and the entirety of Windows 95 reportedly running with no visible hiccups. And in case you (like us) were wondering, yes, it runs Doom as well. Now we’re talking.
So far, Hytale is shaping up to be a heavy hitter due to its bigger focus on RPG elements versus Minecraft and similar open-world crafting games. It must also be noted the game hasn’t been released on Steam at the time of writing, making its success story on PC far more impressive as Valve’s platform becomes the go-to place for millions of gamers.
