Hytale will have undead chickens

Though it’s hidden away at the bum-end of the latest Hytale update, I felt compelled to call out the zombie chicken. Hytale’s NPCs will have multiple-tiers as you pass through the game’s adventure mode. Cursed with undeath, this chook will be one of a number of creatures for you to encounter. I hope it’s friendly, because it looks like there’s going to be plenty of enemies to swipe at.

I’m heartened to see that Hytale looks like it will have some structure. I have been playing a lot of Minecraft of late, and I’ve been craving some sort of pop-up that sends me off on a quest with my friends. Hytale’s latest blog gives me hope that it will provide that sort of fun. It’s not terribly revolutionary: player gets quest, player goes on a quest, that sort of thing. Where you end up could be a pre-designed encounter drilled into the world’s strata, or a looser encampment that’s tougher to plan for.

More importantly, according to Bob Hytale: “Sometimes, an objective might be tied to an item - like a treasure map or a bounty note that sends you off in pursuit of a specific foe.”

Quests and missions are all great, but I’ve recently come to crave little one-off side-trips in games. It doesn’t need to be complicated, just a small adventure that I can hop on with a friend and enjoy the triumph or failure as we giggle on Discord.

It's not set in stone just how you'll engage with the world as a whole. Hypixel initially had the zones planned sequentially, and they'd lead you through tougher and tougher areas as part of a quest, but now they're considering mixing things up, and here's the vague direction they're heading in.

Bob Hytale once again blogged: "Now, the first three zones each contain content at multiple tiers of difficulty, along with appropriately scaling resources and rewards. This means that it's possible for your adventure to start in zone 1, 2 or 3. We haven't settled on whether this will be random, or a matter of player choice, and even the zone names themselves are yet to be finalized. No matter where your journey begins, you'll have the choice of establishing yourself in your starting region, moving to another zone, or even roaming between them."

They're keen to state that the choice to engage in tougher challenges will be down to the player.

The last we heard, Hytale is out in 2021, which still sound distressingly far away to me.