Exporting a Minecraft World to Hytale
Published on January 27, 2026
When comparing Minecraft and Hytale, one question comes up again and again: is it possible to build a bridge between the two games?
We have developed a conversion tool capable of fully translating a Minecraft world into the Hytale engine. All information regarding access to this tool is now available on our Discord server.
This tool is aimed at creators who want to export their Minecraft worlds to Hytale, but it also opens new possibilities for large servers such as Wynncraft or 2b2t that may wish to migrate to Hytale. These projects, which represent countless hours of work, have a lot to gain from moving their worlds to Hytale in order to benefit from extended modding capabilities, a greater render distance, and a new scripting engine.
Technical Distinction: Schematic Conversion vs World Conversion
It is important not to confuse structure imports (Schematics) with full world conversion. The underlying complexity is on a completely different scale.
Schematic conversion (using .schem files) relies on a relatively simple and
well-documented data structure. A schematic is essentially a list of blocks with
relative coordinates. Importing it into Hytale mainly consists of translating this
file into a prefab.json.
This is a direct mapping: a grid of blocks is read and converted into a structured
text file that the Hytale engine interprets to spawn a building or object.
World conversion, on the other hand, requires direct interaction with the game’s binary save format. It is not just about placing blocks, but about generating the data container itself. This involves:
- Reading and understanding region file headers.
- Interpreting the allocation table that points to the different memory segments (blobs).
- Understanding compression logic and the internal structure of chunks to avoid any corruption when loaded by the game engine.
Format Challenges: Region Files, BSON, and Zstd Compression
To achieve this conversion, our tool performs complex engineering work to migrate
from Minecraft’s Anvil format (.mca) to Hytale’s proprietary format
(generally HytaleIndexedStorage).
While Minecraft uses NBT (Named Binary Tag) compressed with Gzip/Zlib, Hytale relies on a different architecture:
- BSON Structure: Data is not stored in NBT but in BSON (Binary JSON). The tool must therefore parse Minecraft data, clean it, and re-encode it according to the object hierarchy expected by Hytale.
- Zstd Compression: Hytale uses the Zstandard (Zstd) algorithm to compress its blobs (chunk data packages). This format is more performant than Zlib, but requires strict decompression and recompression steps during data migration.
- Data Geometry: The script must reorganize Minecraft’s chunk columns to match the cubic sections (32×32×32) used by Hytale, while handling coordinate offsets— most notably the negative Y-axis introduced in recent Minecraft versions.
Advanced Mapping: Handling State Definitions
Conversion fidelity relies on a rigorous mapping system, designed in collaboration
with experienced builders. We did not simply translate block names
(e.g. stone to Rock_Stone);
we implemented full metadata handling.
This mapping has been tested in real conditions by the Hytale Converter community,
which has now completed over 10,000 conversions.
The strength of this mapping lies in its handling of Hytale’s State Definitions,
which are equivalent to Minecraft’s blockstates. The tool fully supports:
- Stairs and Slabs:
All orientations are preserved. The script translates Minecraft’sfacing,half, andshapeproperties
into their corresponding Hytale states. This means stair corners—both
inner and outer—are correctly converted and display without visual errors. - Directional blocks such as logs and pillars also retain their orientation axis.
Finally, there is a specific case for glass blocks. Since the standard glass block
is not currently native to Hytale’s base files, we chose to convert it into Ice blocks.
This approach leaves users free to replace it if needed.
Given Hytale’s flexible modding system, this can easily be done by adding theGlass_Block mod.
To learn more about the tool and access details, join our Discord server.
