Minecraft Dungeons Preview

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David Nisshagen squeals in delight as he directs his character's blocky form down a narrow, elevated platform that is surrounded by flames of violet. He's just discovered a hidden room in Minecraft Dungeons, and even as the executive producer of the game but he's not sure what's going to happen. Through our Discord chat, you can hear his smile.



He said, "This is very rare." "This is very rare. OK?" I laugh and inform my friend that he is exuberant.



He replies, "Yes," but the guy doesn't know the reason. This is amazing. OK, so actually you'll notice that there are some very spooky and mysterious things here. I've just gathered something that will prove extremely useful to me later on in the game, or should I play the game again."



Minecraft Dungeons is an adventure title inspired by classic dungeon crawlers like Diablo or The Binding of Isaac, but with the franchise's patented kid-friendly flair. It features local and online multiplayer, randomly generated levels, and a myriad of familiar and new enemies, including skeletons, spiders, and creepers. The whole thing appears very similar to Minecraft however, it is a new approach to game development for Mojang.



Microsoft purchased Mojang the Swedish studio that developed Minecraft for $2.5 billion in 2014. Currently, it operates under the Xbox Game Studios umbrella. However, this doesn't mean Minecraft Dungeons will be exclusive to Microsoft platforms -- the full game is set to release on PlayStation 4, Switch, Xbox One and Windows on May 26th.



For more than a decade, Mojang has been focused on Minecraft, the worldwide phenomenon that has introduced generations of kids and adults to sandbox-style video games. Mundo's Images Minecraft Dungeons is the studio's first real attempt at a brand new genre, and has been in production for at minimum four years.



The storyline of the game is straightforward but fittingly epic. A villager who is outcast, known as an illager, stumbles upon an orb of power which he uses to invade the world of. He has a group of villagers under his control. Players traverse different regions battling the Arch-Illager's minions and finally battling with the orb-holder.



Mojang introduced illagers into the base Minecraft game in the year 2016, though Nisshagen said these creatures actually started out in the Dungeons development room.



He explained that we required an opponent that was humanoid and had an attack that could be ranged and a fast-following hunter mechanism. After all, Nisshagen said that it was possible to run away from zombies in Minecraft rather than fight them in combat, and Dungeons developers needed something that would encourage combat. "They do chase you with axes and hunt you down, and this was so well-liked by the Minecraft team that they decided to implement it into the game before we had released Dungeons."



In reality, Dungeons began as an internal idea for the Nintendo 3DS.



"You cannot fit Minecraft an extremely complex game, on this," Nisshagen said. This is the reason why the developers decided to use a top-down perspective, rather than the original game's first-person viewpoint, and they concentrated on creating a world filled with opportunities for discovery and surprise.



"You can't take the whole Minecraft game," he said. It's important to simplify it, but keep it simple. ...We focused on exploration and also the sense of adventure. The players should really feel like they're on an adventure. We then take the imagination that Minecraft players use to create all the amazing things in the game. We try to let them use it in our progression system, I suppose.



Minecraft Dungeons doesn't use a traditional progression system based on RPGs and doesn't bind players into a specific role. Instead of being restricted to a specific class, such as "healer", "tank" or "tank", players can switch out their gear and combine items to create weapons that have any abilities they require.



"You can think of the possibility of transforming that sandbox idea into the progression system," Nisshagen said. There are no limitations. You can do almost anything you would like. There are some very bad choices you can make, and there's certainly extremely good or overpowered choices you can make."



There's no wrong way to play Minecraft Dungeons. This is essential for developers, especially when you consider the target audience that Minecraft is aimed at: children and their parents. As the brand, Minecraft is geared toward younger players, while dungeon-crawler games are generally built for adults, featuring extensive progression trees and inventories, and challenging combat arenas. Minecraft Dungeons is an attempt to appeal to both these markets.



Nisshagen stated that she believes that parents will play with their children or older siblings and younger ones. The system has a lot of depth. Anyone with a degree of gaming experience will probably discover some interesting combinations to look into from a mechanics perspective. And for the rest of us can simply play and have a good time as well."



The game features drop-in multiplayer that is both local and online and each stage is adapted according to the number of players. Mundoimg There's no friendly fire except for TNT boxes which can hurt both friends and acquaintances alike when they explode.



Cross-platform play will not be available at launch, but it's "absolutely" likely to happen in the future, Nisshagen said.



He also said that "we're not a huge development team." (Mojang's About Page lists 71 employees). "Just being able to launch the same game on the PlayStation, Nintendo Switch, Xbox and Windows, that is very impressive in itself. And then having cross-play, we'd like it to make it available as soon as possible, but we want to ensure we can provide a good multiplayer experience on your own platform first." Mundoimg



In many ways, Minecraft Dungeons is the natural evolution of the Minecraft franchise. For plenty of 2000s kids, Minecraft was the first game they played due to its being simple, engaging and social. A decade on, these gamers are looking for something more complicated and Minecraft Dungeons is an obvious, familiar answer.