Mojang’s dungeon crawler game Minecraft Dungeons will soon be available to play as an arcade game, the developer has announced. The company has teamed up with Play Mechanix to create a stand-alone version of the hit Minecraft game, which has already been distributed to select locations in North America for testing.
When Mojang says that Minecraft Dungeon gets an arcade version, it refers to an old-school physical arcade game – the kind you’ll need to get to your nearest arcade destination to play. According to the company, players can still expect the familiar multiplayer experience, but with a few “fundamental differences” from the version you play at home.
Explaining these changes, Play Mechanix creative director Will Carlin said:
If you step back you can see the similarities between the two, but when you step into [a consumer] game is like a waltz. An arcade game, on the other hand, is a kind of super break-dancing speed experience – it’s all about intensity in the moment and surviving for as long as possible – a blast of intense fun!
The arcade version of Minecraft Dungeons features a total of nine levels and features a co-op mode, tasking each player with surviving using three buttons: Range, Melee, and Dodge. Players will need a strategy to survive, Carlin notes, because a hack-and-slash approach won’t get you far.
Additionally, the arcade version gets around the save file issue by instead giving the player physical cards for each game session containing the gear they have collected during gameplay – pets, weapons, skins, etc. . Players can scan cards to change their gear. Players can collect a total of 60 cards, with each game session scanning up to five cards.
More arcade units will be released later this year, but additional details are not yet available.