At the Xbox & Bethesda Games Showcase, Mojang revealed Minecraft Legends, a new game that offers an unprecedented style of gameplay compared to its predecessors. The trailer that was shown at the showcase was mostly cinematic, depicting an invasion of Minecraft's Overworld by armies from the Nether, but it showed a few short segments of gameplay towards the end. From what little was seen, it appears to be a genre of game that hasn't yet been tapped into by the Minecraft franchise before.
The original Minecraft is a classic sandbox game, allowing players to explore, gather resources, defeat enemies, and build structures at their leisure. Since its release, it has become the face of the sandbox survival genre, and its gameplay has inspired a number of other games to follow suit. However, this iconic gameplay hasn't been adopted by any of its spin-offs, each of which occupies its own genre and contributes to the further spread of the franchise's household name.
Minecraft Legends is described as an action strategy game, which is far from the franchise's previous entries. The trailer shows the player character moving exclusively on horseback, using companion spirits of some kind to mine materials and build structures with them. The player appears to be able to attack from horseback with a sword, while also having the ability to wave a flag and rally groups of mobs to their aid. Leading these armies of mobs, the player character attacks an enemy castle, which is destroyed by what appears to be an explosion of the nether portal within. Based on this gameplay, Minecraft Legends seems like a Dynasty Warriors crossover, which probably wasn't what players expected from a new Minecraft title, but it seems like it could work.
Minecraft's Take On Dynasty Warriors Could Be A Hit
In the Minecraft Legends reveal trailer, viewers see a villager reading to their child from a picture book, the subject of which appears to be the setting of the game: somewhere in the distant past of the Minecraft world fans know and love, when it was far more vibrant and fantastical. An enormous Nether portal emerges from the ground, and armies of Piglins charge through it, destroying wildlife and killing villagers. The focus then shifts to the player character, and from that point, the actual gameplay is shown. This high-fantasy take on Minecraft's world is intriguing and could provide more information on many of Minecraft's unsolved mysteries and secrets, as opposed to the original game's purely environmental storytelling. The trailer can be viewed below:
One of the most interesting details in the trailer is that the armies the player will lead appear to be made up entirely of mobs, including zombie villagers, skeletons, and creepers. The player character is somehow able to command these usually-hostile mobs, whether they have access to some magical ability or the mobs are willfully joining forces. This makes Minecraft Legends the first Minecraft game in which players can befriend undead and creepers rather than simply attacking them. The implications of this recontextualize the original game like none of Minecraft's spin-off games have ever done in the past.
Between the alliance of mobs and men, the time period in which the game appears to take place, and the scope that outreaches any other Minecraft spin-off, Minecraft Legends certainly seems to have gone where no Minecraft game has gone before. It remains to be seen whether this bold narrative direction will resonate with fans, or how well Mojang can execute the action strategy gameplay loop. Regardless, it is exciting to see Minecraft games continue to broaden their horizons and offer more diverse gameplay experiences.