Pirate Software

I want to explain clearly why we’re pushing modding so hard in Hytale. It’s not because we expect modders to carry the game for us. It’s because I believe the modding community is going to be one of the foundations for where we take Hytale next. This contest is part of that. I want to put modders front and center. I want people making incredible worlds, NPCs, systems, and experiences to be recognized, celebrated, and rewarded. Think esports, but for modders. There’s another reason I care so much about this: we hire from the community. Over the last few months, most of the people we’ve brought onto the team (now over 70) have been people we already knew, respected, and saw building amazing things, especially in the modding community. We’re not trying to build some giant corporate machine with layers of people giving orders. We’re building a scrappy, agile team full of people who actually make things. That matters to me a lot. Everyone here is expected to touch the game. Even people in leadership. Even me. I pushed a small visual fix myself yesterday. I’m in the game constantly, and if I see something wrong, I either fix it or make sure it gets worked on. That’s the culture I want around Hytale: close to the work, close to the game, close to the community. On a personal level, I care about this because I genuinely love making games. Getting Hytale back lit that fire in me again. It’s stressful, sure, but it’s good stress. The kind that comes from building something you believe in. The truth is that building for modding makes development harder. A feature that would be simple in another game often becomes much more complex for us because we have to ask: how can creators use this too? How do we expose it in the right way? How do we make sure it becomes a building block, not just a one-off feature? That work costs us time in the short term. I know that. But I believe it pays off in a big way later, because every good system we build can become a hundred great creations from the community. And when someone in the community makes something exceptional, that creates a real bridge. Maybe we can collaborate. Maybe we can learn from it. Maybe we hire them. If somebody makes an incredible fishing mod before we’ve even tackled fishing ourselves, I don’t see that as a threat. I see talent. I see proof that the ecosystem is working. That’s why I’m pushing for this so hard. Not because modding replaces the studio, but because it makes the game bigger than the studio. It helps us discover talent. It helps us build better in the long run. It keeps us connected to the people who care the most. If we do this right, modding won’t just be a feature of Hytale. It will be one of the strongest foundations for its future. This is just the beginning. We are still in early access.