Minecraft, the beloved no longer indie game, is branching out into all sorts of new genres. It’s already been reimagined as a narrative adventure in the spin-off series Minecraft: Story Mode and, if you haven’t heard, will dive into dungeon crawler territory in April. Mojang Developers released a new video today to learn more about co-op play and procedural levels in Minecraft Dungeons.
Game director Måns Olson says he finds couch co-op to be one of the most fun ways to play Dungeons, as players are encouraged to stick together and cooperate, though he doesn’t elaborate. not how. To my knowledge, Mojang has yet to share how stray players will be handled. Will the game go split-screen or will the camera zoom out to fit everyone?
Contrary to Olson’s preference for local co-op, I already know that I’m going to argue with my friends in online multiplayer so they don’t stray too far. Or rather, if I’m being honest, they’re going to argue with me: the incorrigible map cleaner and loot seeker.
Senior designer Laura De Llorens explains how Minecraft Dungeons gear has enchantments, a system familiar to original Minecraft players. De Llorens describes it as Dungeons’ approach to “long-term progression” in the game. The video shows an enchantment that summons a trail of fire behind a player when dodging a zombie and one that allows the player to shoot a cone of three arrows simultaneously.
If you pay close attention and turn off the voiceover, you can also spot in-game dungeon traps in the video. At one point, a player pulls a lever to swap sets of moving walls which are presumably some sort of puzzle. At another point, two walls break at regular intervals and will presumably crush any player inattentive enough to walk between them.
I’ve been pretty jazzed up for Minecraft Dungeons since it was first announced. I have fond memories of following Minecraft from 2010 and its greatest value to me, aside from the creative potential, is how nearly every friend of mine wanted to play together. I could count on at least someone showing up every night to play together on our private server – a reliable social space that I haven’t really found in a game since those halcyon days of 2015.
I’m hopeful that with a familiar setting and co-op dungeon crawling format, Minecraft Dungeons might be able to bring together my knowledge of the disparate games they’ve turned to.
Minecraft Dungeons will be available on the Microsoft Store and Xbox Game Pass for PC when it releases in April 2020.