Hytale Pre-Release Patch Notes Update 5, Part 2: Chat Overhaul, Audio Reverb, and Creative Tool Upgrades

Hypixel Studios pushed the second pre-release drop for Update 5 on April 2, 2026. Coming just a week after Part 1 introduced audio spatialization, inventory improvements, and world-gen modding hooks, Part 2 focuses on player-facing quality of life, audio polish, creative tooling, and a significant round of bug fixes that address some of the rougher edges that emerged during the Part 1 testing window. Here is everything that changed, and what it means for players and Hytale server operators. Chat Commands Get a Proper Autocomplete UI One of the most visible changes in Part 2 is the overhaul to chat command input. Commands now have tab-autocomplete with a suggestion dropdown that surfaces available commands as you type. Tab cycles forward through suggestions, and Shift+Tab moves backward through variant options. This sounds like a small convenience feature, but it has real implications for server owners. Hytale's command surface has grown substantially through Early Access. A well-stocked modded server now exposes dozens of custom commands from mods and plugins, and without autocomplete, players either had to memorize the syntax or consult external documentation. Tab-completion makes commands more discoverable, which reduces friction for new players joining a server for the first time. For server operators running role-play or survival servers with custom command sets, this change means the investment in building a rich command vocabulary pays off more directly. Players can explore what is available without a tutorial. Audio: Raycasting Probe for Reverb and Ambience The audio work that began in Part 1 with 3D spatialization continues in Part 2 with a raycasting probe model for reverb and ambience detection. Hypixel Studios describes this as a first step toward proper occlusion, diffraction, and reverb zone handling. In practice, this means the game is beginning to model how sound behaves differently when you are inside a cave versus standing in an open field versus moving through a dense forest. The raycasting probe samples the geometry around the player to determine what reverb characteristics should apply, which creates a more convincing sense of acoustic space. For servers with custom-built dungeon environments or enclosed structures, this is the foundation that will eventually let their spaces feel sonically distinct. Right now it is a first step, but it is a meaningful one. Full occlusion (where walls actually block sound) and diffraction (where sound bends around corners) are listed as goals that this probe model is designed to enable. A small fix accompanies the reverb work: voice chat will now correctly play from the listener's position if the speaker's position data is null. This was a regression that made voice chat occasionally sound wrong for players with connectivity issues. Avatar Customization: Mouth Animations for Voice Chat Avatars now perform mouth animations when voice chat is active. This is a social feature rather than a gameplay one, but it contributes meaningfully to the sense of presence in multiplayer. Being able to visually identify who is speaking in a group of players makes conversation easier to follow, which is particularly useful on role-play servers where social interactions are central to the experience. On the cosmetics side, a fix ensures that Flat Styled and Wedge Shoes now render correctly with socks, which addresses a visual mismatch that had been reported by players who like to customize their character's footwear carefully. Items, Crops, and World Behavior A handful of world and item changes in Part 2 are worth knowing about for survival server operators. Crops now check for available space before advancing to the next growth stage. If there is not sufficient room, they reset to the beginning of the current stage rather than skipping growth entirely. This prevents situations where crops could get stuck in an undefined state when placed in tight formations, which was a source of inconsistency on farms with densely packed plots. Opening and closing doors will now break any soft blocks in the door's path, such as crops, and drop their items. This is a more realistic behavior than the previous handling, where doors could clip through placed crops without effect. Server owners building adventure or survival environments with farmable areas near doorways should be aware of this change. Royal Magic Couches can now be sat on, which was noted as missing functionality in Part 1. The Scarak Spit Clump and Small Scarak Spit Clump now break in a single hit, simplifying cleanup after Scarak encounters. Crude Repair Kit descriptions have been updated for clarity. For items, the only practical change is a durability fix: items stored in the backpack will no longer lose durability when the world is configured to remove inventory penalties on death. This was a logic error where the inventory penalty suppression was not being applied to backpack contents, creating unexpected item degradation on servers with softer death settings. Creative Tools: Even Brushes and New Origin Modes Builders using creative tools get a meaningful set of improvements in Part 2. Even-sized creative brushes are now fully supported, removing a gap where brushes with even dimensions behaved inconsistently compared to odd-sized ones. The Lowest and Highest Origin modes have been added to creative brushes, allowing the shape's actual world-Y extremes to be aligned to the target block rather than using the center as the reference point. These two changes together make terrain sculpting and large-scale building more predictable, particularly when working with brushes that need to sit flush against surfaces or align to specific height levels. The Node Editor has gained support for Prop, Positions, and Prop Distribution asset files, which expands what can be wired up directly in the visual node interface without writing custom scripts. Drop-down menus are now used for enum values in World-Gen V2 nodes, replacing text inputs that required exact string matching. The Mirror option has been removed from the Paint Brush. Modding: Multiple Custom HUD Layers For mod developers, the most significant change in Part 2 is support for multiple custom HUD layers coexisting simultaneously. Previously, HudManager's setCustomHud method supported a single custom HUD at a time, meaning mods that each tried to inject HUD elements would conflict with each other. The new API introduces addCustomHud and removeCustomHud methods with string key identifiers and z-order support, so multiple mods can each register their own HUD layers independently. The old setCustomHud method is now deprecated and will be removed in a future update. Server owners running mod stacks with multiple HUD-modifying mods will want to make sure those mods have updated to the new API before the deprecation window closes. The Prefab Prop has temporarily had prefab spawner support restored to give creators more time to migrate away from the deprecated system. Hypixel Studios is clear that this is a temporary reprieve, not a reversal, and creators should continue moving away from the old spawner implementation. Breaking Changes for Modders Part 2 includes several API-level breaking changes that plugin and mod developers need to act on: Player no longer implements CommandSender and PermissionHolder. Use PlayerRef instead for any code that previously passed Player into command or permission checking APIs. The Matrix4d type from Hypixel's internal math package has been removed in favor of the JOML equivalent, continuing the JOML migration that started in Part 1. The deprecated ShutdownReason#withMessage(String) method has been removed in favor of ShutdownReason#withMessage(Message). CommandSender#getDisplayName() has been renamed to CommandSender#getUsername(). Universe#getPlayers() now returns a Collection rather than a List, which may require changes in code that assumed list-specific behavior. Server operators running modded stacks should check with the mod authors for their update timelines ahead of the Part 2 stable release. Bug Fix Highlights Part 2 addresses a substantial list of crashes and rendering issues that emerged during Part 1 testing. Some of the most impactful fixes: Rotated blocks now render correctly, and multi-axis rotations are now composed correctly. Ores that extrude into adjacent chunks now render correctly. Pipe Corners now render correctly. These were visual bugs affecting a range of world-building scenarios and were particularly visible in player-built structures with complex geometry. NPC behavior improvements include a fix for NPCs submerged underwater being locked in place, and capture crates no longer reset captured entities' cooldowns. The Scarecrow hitbox has been reduced to prevent it from breaking when adjacent crops grow into its space. For servers running macOS clients, a fix ensures sprinting and scrolling now work correctly. This was a platform-specific regression that had been reported since Part 1. Sound events will now wait for the player to exist within the world before playing, preventing audio from triggering before spawn is complete on servers with custom spawn sequences. What This Means for Hytale Servers Update 5 Part 2 continues a pattern Hypixel Studios has established through Early Access: shipping pre-release builds frequently, gathering feedback, and iterating quickly before pushing to stable. Part 1 went stable on April 5 after about a week in pre-release. If the same cadence holds, Part 2 could reach stable by mid-April. For players, the chat autocomplete and reverb improvements are the most immediately noticeable changes in everyday play. For server operators, the crop behavior changes and the modding API updates deserve attention before the stable release arrives. The Hytale server list on HytaleCharts currently has over 420 active servers, many of which run modded gameplay that will be affected by the HUD API changes. If you are running a server with custom HUD mods, this is a good time to reach out to those mod developers to confirm their update status. The pre-release build is available through Launcher, under Settings, in the Pre-Release toggle. Hypixel Studios is actively requesting bug reports through the in-game reporter and their Feedback Request site, with a reminder to note the pre-release context in any submissions.