Minecraft Dungeons

Minecraft Dungeons is an action-adventure game set in the Minecraft universe, supporting co-op for up to 4 players. The story tells of a demon named Arch-Illager who attacked a peaceful village and began troubling its residents. You’ll take on the role of a hero who will try to destroy the villain and save their home from the forces of darkness—with help from your companions, of course. You’ll venture into a very large dungeon. As you explore it, you’ll find new weapons, armor, and, naturally, treasure. Your team will travel through swamps, canyons, and numerous caves.

Minecraft: Dungeons is an action RPG with elements of a dungeon crawler and dungeon exploration, viewed from an isometric camera and inspired by the famous sandbox game Minecraft. The gameplay generally follows the genre: your character runs through locations in different biomes, takes down a small number of monsters in various ways, fights tough bosses, and collects loot and emeralds dropped everywhere.

But the gameplay is greatly simplified. For example, armor is reduced to a single slot, your character can use no more than three abilities, and weapons have only basic stats. Combat comes down to pressing a couple of buttons: one to hit enemies up close, and another to shoot them.

At the same time, Dungeons lacks the creative freedom found in Minecraft. You can’t dig, gather resources, or build; change your character’s appearance; create dungeons and share them with other players; or make mods.

Dungeons takes place in the same universe as Minecraft, but it has no connection to the original sandbox game or Minecraft: Story Mode . Nor does it feature much of a story, dramatic CGI cutscenes, long dialogues, or even humor—the “story” is there to push the player forward and tie together the separate parts of the gameplay.

The story of Dungeons is predictable: long ago, an outcast stumbled upon an ancient dungeon, where he found a special artifact, the Orb of Dominance. The discovery quickly took control of his mind, turning him into an evil tyrant who enslaved the free world of the game. The player must free the world and defeat the tyrant, and short briefings before and after each level explain how.

Dungeons consists of a dozen small, winding levels, built by hand with a little procedural generation. However, it keeps Minecraft’s visual style, so all the level elements are made of cubes (which cannot be destroyed).

Dungeons has two class archetypes—warrior and archer—which can eventually be developed into something more, such as a barbarian, mage, or summoner. Loot is not strictly tied to a class, but you should choose your melee and ranged weapons, as well as your armor, based on their stats. Some gear is better suited to an archer, some to a mage. In addition, items in the game are divided into four rarity classes. The higher the rarity, the better the item. As your character levels up, weapons become outdated and need to be replaced with new ones.

Each time a player levels up, they earn enchantment points that can be spent to improve the secondary stats of weapons and armor. Each playthrough also unlocks the next difficulty level, which adds new challenges. New enemies and stronger versions of old ones appear, new loot drops, new abilities become available, and weapons and armor gain extra slots for new passive abilities.

Each character has a camp they return to after every mission. There, they can visit the blacksmith and merchants, and explore a collection of collectible items. Players can also choose whether to play alone or with friends. Local co-op requires each player to be near the screen and have a controller. Gameplay is the same in every mode: each player gets their own loot, generated based on their character’s level and class.