Hytale’s Update 3 landed on February 17, 2026, continuing the game’s Early Access cadence with a big bundle of features, balance changes, tools, and stability improvements.
If you run a Hytale server, this patch is especially interesting because it improves navigation and UI, expands progression and exploration toys, and adds several quality of life changes that affect how players interact with the world and each other.
Update 3 Release Rhythm And What It Signals
Alongside the patch notes, the team outlined a release approach: weekly pre release patches for testing, bundled into a stable update every 2 to 6 weeks once changes settle. They also teased “chapters” as larger content drops that advance the Cursebreaker arc through Early Access.
That matters for players and communities because it sets expectations: frequent iteration, regular bug fixing, and occasional major feature drops that can change how worlds and multiplayer servers feel.
Features Players Will Notice Immediately
Update 3 is packed, but a few additions stand out because they change moment to moment gameplay.
Animal Taming
An early version of taming is now in, letting you tame certain friendly animals using their favorite food. Tamed animals can be interacted with and, depending on the animal, may be milked, sheared, or mounted.
User Placed Map Markers
You can now place custom map markers with names, icons, and colors, and share them with other players in multiplayer. There are also new settings for marker visibility on the map and compass, plus easier marker deletion.
Localization Expansion
Two new in-game languages were added: Brazilian Portuguese and Russian, with more planned. This also ties into UI and font improvements included in the same update.
Avatar Presets
Players can now save and swap between up to five avatar customization presets, which is a simple change that makes cosmetics and identity switching much smoother.
Sickles For Farming
Sickles were added, able to harvest multiple crops in a single swing. If your community runs farms or economy style progression, this is a direct boost to efficiency and farming flow.
Climbing Overhaul And Fire Spread System
Climbing got a meaningful refresh, including side stepping, dropping down, and rope rotation. The update also adds a new fire spread system and a Goblin Flamethrower, currently Creative only.
Anchor UI System For Server Plugins
One of the biggest “server owner” features is the new Anchor UI system, designed to let server plugins add UI elements into existing client pages like the world map. This is a strong sign the modding ecosystem is being treated as a first class feature.
Combat And Items Improvements
Update 3 includes a lot of tuning across weapons and combat behavior:
- Adjustments to weapon tier damage inconsistencies and stamina guarding costs.
- Spear stacking and throwing consistency improvements.
- Ranged weapon aiming and ballistics improvements, including accuracy tweaks and additional debug options.
- Shortbows and crossbows can now use ammo directly from the backpack.
Necromancy also got a major polish pass, with summons no longer damaging the summoner, reacting better to threats, moving faster, and gaining more minion variety including a ranged variant.
Gameplay Quality Of Life That Helps Multiplayer
A lot of the “feel” upgrades in Update 3 show up in inventory and interaction:
- Inventory sort keybind working in player inventory.
- “Take All” for processing bench outputs.
- Faster transfers via shift dragging.
- Utility wheel quick swap rework.
Navigation also got real improvements: clearer map marker visuals, readable player names on the map, compass icons that reflect vertical distance, and other marker and icon refinements.
World, Blocks, Encounters, And Furnaces
Content and world-building changes are spread across several areas:
- New and returning blocks, textures, and variants such as crack variants, lime variants, and more.
- Region and encounter updates, including new encounter environments and spawn location improvements in Taiga areas.
- A new T2 Furnace and updated T1 furnace visuals.
If your server leans into exploration, building, or survival progression, these additions provide more variety and better pacing across zones.
UI, Audio, And Accessibility Improvements
Update 3 continues to tighten presentation:
- Updated sword audio and expanded audio output mode options.
- Improved UI navigation for long server lists and a scrollbar for users with many mods.
- Font fallback support to better handle non Latin languages, including a Noto Sans fallback for Cyrillic glyphs.
- Reworked item tooltips and larger UI element dimensions to support localization.
These updates are subtle, but they matter a lot as the player base expands internationally and mod lists get bigger.
Modding And Tools Get A Serious Upgrade
If you care about the long-term health of Hytale communities, the modding section is a highlight:
- Mods can be enabled and disabled from the save folder mod path.
- Server version checks for plugins and asset packs, plus stronger validation behaviors.
- Duplicate plugin detection warnings and better handling for missing mods.
- Creative tool improvements like paste tool upgrades, undo and redo, and smoother movement.
This is the kind of foundation that makes modded Hytale servers more reliable, especially once you start mixing multiple plugins, asset packs, and custom world content.
Performance, Stability, And Security Fixes
Update 3 includes meaningful under-the-hood work:
- Security fixes addressing directory traversal vulnerabilities and an exploit that could allow command impersonation.
- World generation performance improvements and optimized client asset sizes.
- Reliability improvements like atomic file saving, improved backups, and better corrupted world warnings.
- Multiple crash fixes, including plugin related crash handling and startup exception handling for plugins.
For anyone running a public Hytale server, these stability and security updates are the kind you want to apply quickly.
Hosting Hytale For Update 3 With Pine Hosting
If you want to experience Update 3 smoothly with friends, reliable Hytale server hosting makes a difference, especially as mod lists, world generation demands, and player counts grow. Pine Hosting helps you deploy and manage a Hytale server with the performance headroom and stability you need to enjoy new features like map marker sharing, improved mod management, and the ongoing rapid patch cycle without constant headaches.
