Minecraft Legends' Struggles Can't Scare Mojang Away From…

In 2023, Mojang Studios released a new game in the Minecraft series called Minecraft Legends. Developed in collaboration with Blackbird Interactive, the studio behind Hardspace: Shipbreaker and Homeworld 3, this game was intended to be a more beginner-friendly alternative to the real-time strategy genre. Minecraft Legends features a unique blend of action-oriented gameplay and RTS combat. Much like in the cult classic Double Fine game, Brutal Legend, players control a group of Minecraft mobs, which they command to attack the piglin armies and defend their villages from raids. Unlike Minecraft, the game has a story mode, which is roughly 10 hours long.

Despite its relatively novel concept, Minecraft Legends wasn't able to attract the attention of mainstream audiences; the game received middling reviews and a tepid response from the overall Minecraft community. While some praised Minecraft Legends for its gameplay loop, others criticized it for being too repetitive and lacking in content. Support for Minecraft Legends sadly ended on January 10, 2024, less than a year after it initially came out. Even though the game wasn't a big success, its failure shouldn't discourage Mojang and Microsoft from making more Minecraft spin-offs in the future.

minecraft players want custom world generation to return

Minecraft Players Want World Generation Feature to Return

Fans of Minecraft band together to request that long-missing world generation features that made custom worlds possible make a return to the game.

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By Eli Hughes

Minecraft Legends is One of Many Minecraft Spin-Offs that Have Underperformed

Most of Mojang's Attempts to Expand the Minecraft IP Have Failed So Far

Minecraft is one of the most popular IPs on the planet, and yet, for some reason, the series hasn't really found success beyond its first installment. Following Minecraft's initial release in 2011, Mojang has attempted to make spin-offs of the game on multiple occasions. The first spin-off the company ever worked on was 2015's Minecraft: Story Mode. Created primarily by Telltale Games, Minecraft: Story Mode was an episodic, narrative-driven adventure game in the vein of Telltale's The Walking Dead and The Wolf Among Us, albeit more family-friendly. Minecraft: Story Mode was released in two seasons, the second of which came out in 2017. Both seasons got lukewarm receptions, and were widely regarded as some of Telltale's lesser works.

A few years after the release of Minecraft: Story Mode, Mojang launched another Minecraft spin-off called Minecraft Earth. Since it required players to go outside in order to play it, this augmented reality mobile game was regarded as Mojang's answer to Pokemon GO. Initial impressions of Minecraft Earth were somewhat negative, due to its excessive use of microtransactions and limited post-launch support. This, coupled with the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, led to Minecraft Earth's untimely demise. The game was shuttered just two years after it debuted and is no longer playable.

Perhaps the only Minecraft spin-off that actually became successful was Minecraft Dungeons. Like Minecraft Legends, this game was designed to be a more approachable version of a Diablo-style dungeon crawler. Minecraft Dungeons was positively reviewed by fans and, although it did receive 6 DLCs and even an arcade port, Mojang ended support for the game in October 2023, roughly three years after it was launched.

Minecraft Legends' Failure Can Be Attributed to Other Reasons Beyond a Lack of Demand

The failure of these Minecraft spin-offs doesn't necessarily mean that gamers don't want more Minecraft games. Rather, the underwhelming commercial performance of these titles can be attributed to other factors, like their overall lack of quality and limited post-launch support. Mojang has never really stuck with a Minecraft spin-off for more than a few years and given it the attention it deserves. Even when a spin-off does well, like in Minecraft Dungeons' case, the company has often abandoned it shortly after its release. If Mojang really wants to make more Minecraft games in other genres, it should ensure that they are high quality and supported for as long as the main Minecraft game. A Minecraft 3D platformer, third-person shooter, or puzzle game that meets these criteria could do a lot better than Minecraft Legends in the long run.