After being in development for over 10 years, Hytale, a sandbox game from the Hypixel Studios team with support from Riot, has officially been cancelled. Hypixel Studios’ CEO, Noxy, announced the cancellation on X on June 23, with the official Hytale forums following suit.
I think what makes the game great is that it contains a number of game mechanics, which are all interlocked and play nice together. That gives it enormous versatility. You can be a nomad explorer, or a builder who stays at base and never sees a hostile mob. You can be a redstone engineer, or a farmer accumulating insane amounts of resources. You can create map art and barter with other map artists on the server. You can hunt bases and either grief them or contact their owners and get to know their history. You can play mini games on commercial servers or code your own mods and play PvA (player vs admin) on anarchy servers.
You can find the exact combo and dosage that fits your playstyle, then switch gears a couple months later and turn the game on its head. I don’t know of many games with that kind of variety.