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The Current Situation

The year 2025 ended with records for Skydinse: With 574 concurrent players during the MineAttack release, the network reached a milestone. Despite technical limitations and staffing shortages, projects like TimeSMP were successfully established, and classics like MurderMystery were updated. Thanks to the contributions of many members of our community through the Skydinse Store, we were able to secure Skydins' operation for several months in advance.

However, we also encountered major problems. Particularly notable here is certainly the difficulty we faced in integrating new developers into our development team for the Minecraft network. To make matters worse, our lead developer for long-term game modes and integration into Minecraft was away on a work and travel trip for several months and was therefore unable to contribute as much to the further development of Skydinse’s most popular modes - TimeSMP and the annual MineAttack season. That doesn’t mean no development has taken place, though: In recent months, there have been several feature updates for BlockParty and a major update for MurderMystery.

What Has Changed

The year 2026 began with several clear signs of how the Minecraft community is currently evolving and is likely to develop in the coming years, raising the question of what role Skydinse will play as a Minecraft network within the German-speaking and international Minecraft community. Our rule has always been to prioritize doing what we ourselves enjoy the most. Nevertheless, we naturally want to reach as broad an audience of players as possible so they can see our hard work in action, bring joy to others through the game, and - of course - cover the significant costs of running a network like Skydinse.

Skydinse has long been defined by one specific SMP mode: MineAttack. This has always included a fairly wide selection of minigames, and up until 2022, we also had our own CityBuild mode. Today, things look very different on Skydinse: Most players come and stay for MineAttack and TimeSMP, while our selection of minigames has shrunk over the years at the expense of these and other long-term modes gathering dust on the shelf (CityBuild, NewGame), as well as due to new technical developments that render the old minigame code dysfunctional. Five years ago, our minigame sector was still full of life: BuildFFA, SquidGame, FloorIsLava, Bedwars, Blockparty, and MurderMystery. For cost reasons, many of these modes were integrated into a large Arcade mode in 2022, which also introduced new games like Smash. Later, Arcade itself was discontinued for technical reasons, with our promise at the time to gradually release the game modes from Arcade as full, standalone modes that were even better and more in line with our standards. But we were unable to keep that promise - only BlockParty has returned (with missing features), along with a new (and undoubtedly good) MurderMystery, a new Duels mode, and Maze. However, since our minigame development in Minecraft also depends on just one or two people, progress here cannot move any faster either.

The community has also changed, both in German-speaking and international regions. The world’s largest Minecraft network is no longer a minigame server, Hypixel, but an SMP server - DonutSMP. Of course, there are still some servers with lively minigames and excellent technical implementation; the Cytooxien network is particularly worth mentioning here. At the same time, we’ve also seen how other servers with truly great concepts, such as TheJoCraft/Froglight, are struggling to stay afloat (which only works through SMP modes). On top of that, there was a development in January 2026 that sent shockwaves through the gaming community: After Riot Games scrapped the project, Hytale was reacquired by the original team at Hypixel Studios and released in January as an Early Access version that, despite the game’s early stage, completely blew everyone away - us included.

Our Vision for 2026

We’re already approaching the halfway point of the year. MineAttack VI is coming to an end, and preparations for Season VII are already underway. In addition, development continues on our major update for TimeSMP, Season 2, and we’re still working on the new maze behind the scenes. So work on minigames will certainly continue on our Minecraft network, even if it’s hard to say just how big a role they might play on Skydinse in the future. One concept we all really liked was integrating the minigames more into our long-term game modes - for example, with rewards in TimeSMP. The technical side is also particularly relevant here: Many of Skydinse’s backend systems are set to be rewritten (once again), this time on a stable foundation and in Java. Development on our SMP modes is also gaining momentum in Minecraft, and some of our long-time team members are being brought into the current development process on Skydinse.

As mentioned earlier, the launch of Hytale’s Early Access phase certainly didn’t go unnoticed by us. Hytale is a fantastic game - almost a platform - that was created specifically to meet the needs of modders, builders, and developers. The game’s development is already secured for several years to come, and it’s a real pleasure to be part of this process. That’s why we recently decided to develop a Hytale network alongside our mainstay, the Minecraft network. With completely new technology, new integration, and an ecosystem all its own. It’s hard to predict how big this project will ultimately become, but our nearly six-year-old philosophy applies here as well: First and foremost, we do what we feel like doing. The multiplayer scene in Hytale isn’t particularly large yet, but it’s growing steadily. One of the largest international Hytale networks, Histatu (a former Minecraft network), has up to 150 players online at the same time. At the same time, many Hytale networks are already demonstrating the fantastic new possibilities the game offers in areas like minigames, SMPs, or MMORPGs.

As part of our plans for Minecraft and Hytale, we’ll also be moving forward with a project that’s been on the back burner for years: the internationalization of Skydinse. A large part of our community comes from German-speaking countries, and game modes like MineAttack are designed specifically with them in mind. Nevertheless, our goal is to reach an international community as well, as you can already see on our Discord server, for example.

Community Participation

So, 2026 certainly has a few surprises in store for all of us in both Minecraft and Hytale, and we hope to take you all along on this journey. Over the coming weeks and months, we’ll be hosting more community events and engaging more with our community. Also, a very important note: We are looking for developers. Specifically, those who are interested in participating in our Hytale project and already have experience in plugin development or modding for Minecraft or Hytale. You have the unique opportunity to help us shape our vision for Hytale in a lasting way. If you’re interested, be sure to join our Discord server!

Your Skydinse Team.