Minecraft gets a rebuild. If you don't know what Minecraft is, it's time for you to leave this planet and try Mars, maybe? If you do, then again, Minecraft is getting a redo. The entire game of Minecraft will come to the world in a different, strategy-based way. Minecraft Legends is happening, as most gamers already know, and it is far quicker than you think.
April is the launch month for the long-awaited Minecraft spinoff by Mojang. You will be fighting all the fights in this new interpretation of the pixelated game, not just trying to reach the top of the world with your building. All to protect the Minecraft Overlord from invading Piglins. All through the months since the announcement, Mojang has dropped bits and pieces of information about the game here and there.
History Of Minecraft
We've been on the lookout and have gathered all of the most important ones here. But before we dive into these, here’s a quick reminder of why it should interest you. Minecraft is one of the most important games in history. It is number one still in sales across the globe, as we speak. Yes, the bestselling game of our generation is a game with pixelated blocks and all.
Minecraft was released back in 2011 and since then has sold over 238 million copies or 22 per year on average. It’s unfathomable just how surreal this game is. In comparison Grand Theft Auto, the second-bestselling game in history has sold 175 million copies since 2013. It is then only natural for the gaming community to buzz about this Minecraft Legends release by now!
Ten Things We Know About Minecraft Legends
Now that we’re on the same page about Minecraft and its now-sequel game, let’s dive right into the matter. What is Minecraft Legends? What are the features of the gameplay going to be like? What should gamers know about it? Is it going to be free, online, or what? Here are ten things we know about this upcoming gaming sensation that you should probably know as a fan.
Release date - Now obviously the most important piece of information about an upcoming game is the release date. Everything else comes second but this, no matter if you're familiar with a certain series or a newbie. For Minecraft Legends, the game is set to come out on April 18th for the PC and consoles. The game will be made available on the Xbox Game Pass seconds later.
The main trailer - The very first trailer from Minecraft Legends is also the most comprehensive one. There's a snippet of gameplay in it but not much of it. You start with an animated cinematic, the way Mojang likes to introduce us to any new project. Then you are informed about the story of the Overlord, uniting against inflationists, the notorious piglins. "According to legend, only you can bring together the mobs of the Overworld and help them defend their home." The character even rides a horse at the head of its army, which is complete with zombies, creepers, skeletons, you name it. All of these lifelong enemies make a common front and come together just so that they can kick the piglins right where they belong, in the Nether.
Gameplay trailer - Is there any better way to make an idea about a new or upcoming game than by watching the latest trailer of it? Not really. Well, if it's a regular trailer, then you can do better with a later gameplay trailer. Yet for the first few weeks after announcement day, you are most likely to see a regular trailer, a snippet of what the game is about and its functions. In January of 2023, Minecraft Legends released a gameplay trailer in which the hero goes from biome to biome. He is followed by golems, llamas, and other fearful forces. The hero is seen ordering allies to defend a Villager, or a village, we're not sure, before going down full force on the Piglin Fortress.
Gameplay - Minecraft Legends mixes survival with crafting and real-time strategy. This is what people expect from this game and this is what they will mostly get once the overworld is released into our realm. There are also familiar and brand-new biomes in the game. The main gameplay will have the hero traversing biomes while on a mount, gathering materials and supporting allies, as well as fighting the angry piglins and making bases for the survivors. In the first trailer, heroes are put on a horse mount. Yet in a later gameplay trailer, there is confirmation that there are many mounts, one of which is a purple feline. Once on the journey, you are never alone, as you can play along with your friendly mobs. Made out of badgers. And llamas.
NPCs and Units - Although relying somewhat on vanilla Minecraft mob types, Legends will also come with some fully original NPCs. Both as commanding troops for the player and respectively enemy armies. In terms of player helpers, you have skeletons, creepers, villagers, as well as newer golems and zombies, each of which comes with personal features. For example, cobblestone golems are very effective in destroying structures made by the enemy. Plank Golems can be useful when in need of a ranged unit. At the same time, the Piglin enemy forces are ready to expand their powers with many additions. Their armies are gonna turn into hordes, hello World of Warcraft! Hordes come with specializations, like the Bastions being a more defensive group.
Multiplayer - This game will have both co-op and then competitive multiplayer options, according to the folks at Xbox. There is also a PvP mode where you can take on another base-building team and then try to take them out before they can take you down. Neat! Piglins are not going to be spectators to this PvP action while it's happening, as they will simply attack you and your enemy in an equal but uncontrolled fashion. When it comes to crossplay, so far we can just bet that there will be at least PC-to-Xbox capabilities, if not more. Mojang will surely do the same thing they did with Minecraft Dungeons and allow crossplay on all platforms and consoles. We are pretty sure of that considering the success of that particular move.
Developed by... who? - By now you've read about how Mojang is working on this new Minecraft Legends for a while. Well, the fact of the matter is, Mojang is more of a supervisor. Blackbird Interactive, or BBI, is the studio doing the actual work. They've worked on some dope projects so far, such as Hardspace: Shipbreaker and the upcoming Crossfire: Legion RTS. BBI has a dedicated team working on "Legends" and, although outsourced, the game should be fine considering there are some very experienced hands working on it. It sure looks like a decent to amazing year for strategy games.
Preorder - As with most major gaming releases, you can expect to be able to preorder Minecraft Legends weeks before the release. Since it is almost launch week by the time you read this article, we'll just conclude that you know about this already. If you don't, Legends is available for preorders and comes directly from the source, that is, the official website of the franchise. The Standard Edition of the game will set you back $40, while the Deluxe Edition will come to your doorstep, although most likely virtually, for $50. The Deluxe Edition comes with a few perks. Included are the extra 6 skins, an extra hero, 4 mounts, as well as a mount skin that will be made available with the release of the beast.
World - The environment of any game is one of its most important elements of it. We now know that Minecraft Legends puts a big price on the world, as the entire game revolves around the story and the environment that makes it happen. The game is about the salvation of the Overworld from the corrupted Nether. We got some important clues about this Overworld from the team behind the game in a recent blog post, saying that the world will be important not just for looks but also for strategy. "Instead of a block-by-block approach, you will be required to play thought by thought. Turning your ideas for structures into reality in seconds instead of minutes... of manual labour."
System requirements - System requirements - The game is now listed on Stream and surely has some important information on its presentation page. One key aspect to most gamers is the system requirements. This makes it easier for a certain gamer to see from the very start if the game is a match or not for their computer. In the case of Minecraft Legends, the requirements are low when it comes to performance. ”Legends" will run on Windows 7 or higher, on a Core i5 2.8GHz or equivalent. When it comes to memory, the game will run on 8GB or RAM or more. In terms of graphics cards, you will need an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660 or AMD Radeon HD 7870 or equivalent DX11 GPU and DirectX Version 11. Finally, you will need 8GB of available space on your disk to be able to install the game.
Three Things We Don’t Know About Minecraft Legends
With power comes great responsibility. And with information comes a lack of it, most of the time. Even if we do know a lot about the Minecraft Legends game, there’s still a bit of information that is not yet available to us so far. Here are the top three things, as per their importance, that we still don’t know about this game. If we find out the truth about these, we’ll just update the article.
Steam Deck - We do not know if Minecraft Legends will run on the Steam Deck or not. We assume that yes, it will eventually come to the device, in some form on another, considering the device has the required specs. Minecraft Legends is available on Steam as well as the Switch, from the very start, which means the future for the game's availability is pretty pink. And with Minecraft being such a portable game in its essence, it's only natural the game will come to the named device eventually. The game comes with low specs for the PC, which makes it easier to be turned into a portable experience.
Other mounts - We do know that players in Legends will get a mount, most likely a horse. But is this the only type of mount that heroes will be able to go on and roam around the world? So far, we do not know. The only thing we do know is that there is a horse ready to be mounted and that there is a possibility that there are going to be tiger mounts as well. We don’t yet know officially if this is the case, or if there are other types of mounts ready to be put in the game. Maybe Legends will go as far as to get elephants and other things on board Noah’s Arch, World of Warcraft-style.
No story - Although we know a lot about Minecraft Legends, we do not know the precise story of the game. Is there going to be a campaign mode, in which players get from point A to point B and then end the game? Are there going to be missions like in the WoW universe? We simply know that there are bits and pieces of information about this but not many details on it. We will patiently wait and see, as the game is no literally days away and most likely out by the time you stumbled upon this piece.