A look at Hytale’s Lore and Philosophy – Hytale

Hi everyone! I’m Joe, holder of the keys to Hytale’s lore vault, and I’m going to take a few minutes to talk about our approach to narrative and lore, as well as to try to set or reset some expectations around it.

Before we get stuck in, there’s one thing I want to get out of the way to avoid disappointment: This blog post will not contain any new specifics about the lore or narrative itself. There’ll be no grand secrets or surprises divulged here! That part I’ll leave to the game itself.

On Concept Art

When we announced the game seven years ago, we released an unusually high amount of concept art for a game still in development. We did so with clear disclaimers that this was all work in progress and that it wasn’t a promise the contents would make it into the game – a disclaimer we still feature prominently on our media page.

Much of that concept art included ideas and inspirations that were already outdated by the time they were released. Some of those ideas were only that – inspirations that weren’t necessarily intended to become actual canon within the lore. Over the years that followed, more and more of that concept art became gradually less accurate, to the point where entire sheets were dropped, and their contents were either removed or no longer planned for implementation.

Such is the inevitable nature of concept art.

Revisiting Hytale’s Lore

Since the reacquisition, many of these changes have been rolled back or re-incorporated in different ways. Hytale evolved and changed dramatically over the years as the vision shifted – lore being no exception. The narrative went through multiple drafts, many of which weren’t entirely compatible with each other. Entire factions were dropped or drastically changed.

We have made the conscious decision to return to an earlier draft – one that’s far more compatible with the engine we’re shipping and the vision we have for the game as a whole. As a result, many aspects of the lore – most of which were never publicly revealed – have changed. Some of these changes we’ll keep in reserve with the potential to return to them later, but for now they’re not a part of our canon, and there’s the possibility that they may never be.

At the same time, we’re working to reconcile the new with the old where we can and where it makes sense to do so. For example, when the revised Scaraks were first shown, the change was divisive. Today, we like both the old and the new designs. But with the timeline we’re shipping on and the fact that the new designs aren’t usable in-game, we can’t exactly throw out the old ones anymore – nor do we want to! From these constraints and necessities comes a means of bringing both into the lore and making them work. No spoilers on how, though! You’ll learn about that eventually!

This draft also retains many of the major aspects of the lore the community has come to love over the years – characters such as Gaia and Varyn are still very much a part of our canon, and Tessa and Kyros are coming back as well. We also intend to revisit the concept of Alterverses, as we value the opportunities it offers to plan for long-term content and to connect it to the overarching narratives we eventually want to tell.

Overall, this reflects our general philosophy and approach to lore: to build a cohesive framework that leaves enough room to explore the ideas that generate excitement, both within the team and across the community. It’s crucial to us that we maintain a consistent and coherent narrative while also allowing experimentation and interpretation.

Our Philosophy

Lore should not be a strict set of rules that everyone on the team is required to follow when designing content. It should be an inspiration that fuels creativity and allows experimentation, but also a set of guardrails to ensure we don’t get too far off track and that everything remains consistent.

We do have a set of canon foundations that are very unlikely to change again, but everything above them is kept flexible enough to change if needed. Much of our lore – especially the early teases present in Exploration Mode – will be uncovered by exploring the world and uncovering hints left in the form of structures and the items or objects found therein. This method of storytelling is often referred to as ‘archaeology’ and gives us the flexibility to tell stories from different perspectives, many of which may not share the same understanding of Orbis and its nature. For example, while Gaia is the Avatar of Orbis, not all factions may be aware of this fact!

That’s not to say that Hytale’s lore is some throwaway thing into which we put very little thought. The exact opposite, in fact. Every new idea is examined from all angles to see how it might fit into the whole – and if it even will. With every new introduction, those canon foundations grow, and ideas form into concrete aspects of a faction, a region, a narrative beat, or anything else. This isn’t so different to the way many much-loved canons evolve. What binds it all together is a shared vision and a curator to ensure consistency.

Of course, this is only one side of the coin in the end. As much as our lore exists to eventually tell a story, we want it to serve as a framework within which you – the players – can tell your own tales. The adventures you embark upon, whether to learn more about the world and its history, build magnificent castles, or cultivate a cosy farm, are as much a part of Hytale’s narrative as any stories we may tell in a future Adventure Mode.

Exploration Mode

With the highly accelerated timeline to release an early access version of Hytale, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that there’s been no time to put in a grand sweeping narrative. There are no systems in place to support such an endeavour, and there has never been a version of the game that had anything close to a narrative implemented. Even the details of the story itself have never truly been finalized.

As a result, expect lore in Exploration Mode to be uncovered almost exclusively through archaeology and discovery, and to be relatively light at first. There are certainly secrets to be found throughout the world, and nothing exists without intent. We’ll also continue to introduce lore as we update other aspects of the game.

Though I’ve said there will be no grand narrative, there is a narrative of sorts present. It’s one intended for players to piece together as they play through the Exploration Mode – one that ties into our transition from Worldgen v1 to v2.

Perhaps the term ‘Cursebreaker’ will ring some sort of bell?

Change is never just for the sake of change

As a closing note, I’d like to talk a little bit about change – a recurring theme throughout this post.

Hytale’s lore has always been in a state of flux. In the past, it changed and changed again, sometimes so often that members within the team had different understandings of what was true and not. Since reacquiring the game, we’ve made changes too – something I already mentioned earlier in the post. Not every change will be popular with everyone, but sometimes those changes are necessary for a variety of reasons, even if it might be hard for some of you.

We don’t – and won’t – make changes to lore just for the sake of it. Every change we make is intentional and thoroughly thought out.

Until now – with our early access release date looming – there has never truly been a moment where anyone could definitively say ‘this is canon in Hytale’s lore’. Some concepts have remained relatively unchanged, but even they weren’t really safe.

Only when you – the players – step into the Echoes of Orbis for the first time, can we finally and truly say that Hytale’s lore has crystallized into canon.

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