The YouTuber and Twitch streamer Erik “Gronkh” Range is primarily known for his Minecraft Let’s Plays. They are still very popular with his viewers today. Now Gronkh is playing Hytale, and his community is being reminded of old times.
What kind of new game is this? Since January 13, 2026, the game Hytale has finally been launched after a long period of development. The launch was a complete success, as the game was able to register over 2.8 million players right away.
MeinMMO author Johanna is also excited about the game.
Gronkh’s interest was also piqued by the “Minecraft killer.” He has now released the first episode of a Let’s Play of Hytale on his YouTube channel.
“THIS MAKES ME SOOOOO HAPPY THANK YOU”
Why is the community feeling nostalgic? Many voices from the community are feeling nostalgic during the Let’s Play, even though Hytale is an entirely new game. This is because Hytale closely resembles Minecraft, a game for which Gronkh has also uploaded several Let’s Plays on YouTube.
One of his first videos on YouTube, about 15 years ago, was his “Let’s Shows” in Minecraft, where Gronkh showcased his massive builds in Minecraft. Then, about 15 years ago, the YouTuber started a run of Minecraft, calling the episode “#001 – Everything From the Beginning” and made German YouTube history with it.
Many from his community are reminded of that time. Gronkh himself is also playing with the similarity between Hytale and Minecraft, as he named the first Hytale episode “#001 – Everything From the Beginning”. He even brought back his special greeting “Hallöchen Popöchen” for the first episode of Hytale.
The community is excited in various ways about the new Let’s Play. Some are just happy, like shinpie on Threads: “THIS MAKES ME SOOOOO HAPPY THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU GRONKH AHHHH” or others cannot believe that the Minecraft Let’s Play was so long ago. Like KonK23 on Reddit: “15 years ago 💀”
User Wombel aptly states on Reddit: “(…) If this gets under 500 episodes, then I don’t know either.” He is referring to the high number of episodes of the Minecraft Let’s Play.
What connects you with Gronkh and his Let’s Plays? Let us know in the comments!
Before Gronkh started his successful career as a content creator, he worked in a “very normal” job: Gronkh worked as a “dumb stone troll” in a company before his career on Twitch, explaining where the name comes from
