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Few games achieve the level of success that justifies a sequel \u2013 let alone establish a long-running franchise. But in the course of 10 years, Minecraft has ballooned into a video game juggernaut. Store shelves overflow with Minecraft-themed books, comics, action figures, plush toys, and Lego kits. Minecraft fans attend Minecraft festivals and museum exhibits while wearing Minecraft hoodies. Warner Bros. is even set to turn the brand into a major motion picture by 2022. Developer Mojang seems happy to develop nearly every Minecraft project that comes across it desks … except for a Minecraft 2.<\/p>\n
\u201cI cannot imagine there will ever be a Minecraft 2,\u201d says Minecraft\u2019s creative director Saxs Persson. \u201cWe’ve done a lot of soul searching. Unequivocally, we’re the Minecraft studio, and we’ve chosen to embrace that. But we have, over time, realized how flexible the envelope of Minecraft really is … We’ve always been passionate about making more than a single game, but we never wanted to do a sequel. We’re much more interested in taking that spark of creativity and applying it to other genres within the universe of Minecraft.\u201d<\/p>\n
In short, Mojang doesn\u2019t need to make a true Minecraft sequel because its core game is still flourishing. However, in an effort to reach new audiences, the studio knows it needs to stay creative and broaden Minecraft\u2019s umbrella. The studio plans to turn Minecraft into a many-headed hydra with a little something for everyone. And this exciting journey begins inside a lowly dungeon.<\/p>\n
Mojang was never prepared for the success of Minecraft. When Markus \u201cNotch\u201d Persson founded the company in 2009, the young developer anticipated that the studio would pursue a traditional development model, turning out a new game every few years. This is why, in the early 2010s, the company developed the digital collectible-card game called Scrolls (later renamed Caller\u2019s Bane). However, Scrolls never achieved the same level of success that Minecraft found, which forced Mojang to reevaluate its\u00a0priorities.<\/p>\n
\u201cBack when Scrolls was created, most of the people on the team thought that Minecraft had peaked,\u201d says CEO Jonas M\u00e5rtensson. \u201cThe idea of the studio back then was to create more games that would have a normal cycle, where you have a peak at launch and it gradually decreases. But obviously, with the success of Minecraft we decided that we owe it to the players to double down on making Minecraft as great as it could be. That\u2019s why, after Scrolls, we decided that we were going to focus on\u00a0Minecraft.\u201d<\/p>\n
The release of Telltale\u2019s Minecraft: Story Mode in 2015 provided a good template for the future. Not only was Telltale\u2019s adventure series financially successful, but it also proved that Minecraft fans were hungry for experiences that didn\u2019t exist within the original game. Around the same time, a small group of Mojang employees began to dream about their ideal project. These designers were big fans of classic dungeon-crawler RPGs, and they felt like there was a dearth of similar, family-friendly experiences on the market. Perhaps they could take the hack \u2018n slash action they loved from games like Diablo and Path of Exile and infuse it with Minecraft\u2019s blocky visuals and playful atmosphere. The team began prototyping a game for Nintendo\u2019s 3DS. But what started as a small-scope, single-player experiment quickly turned into something much\u00a0larger.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a genre that we as a team are passionate about,\u201d says executive producer David Nisshagen. \u201cWe all like to play these types of games, and it seemed like a good fit for Minecraft because we already have all this venturing into caves, fighting mobs, and finding treasure. It all boils down to passion. There was never any plan\u00a0 like, \u2018Let us do a proper market analysis and find a segment that is unsatisfied.\u2019 That\u2019s not where this is coming from. It\u2019s literally coming from, \u2018This is fun. This is Minecraft, but\u00a0different.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n