The overworld is morphing again, this time into Minecraft Legends, a new action strategy spinoff for Mojang’s main crafting game. Legends is planning to take you on an adventure across the biomes of the overworld, hunting and gathering resources to build your defenses against the invading piglin forces. You’ll unite old enemies like skeletons and creepers into allies against the Nether’s corruption. Oh, and your own friends can join you in online co-op too.
Revealed in June 2022 at the Xbox Showcase, Mojang gave just a little away about what’s planned for strategically commanding your mob armies in Legends. One thing the reveal trailer makes super clear: You’ll be doing quite a lot of riding around on horseback like a knight in iron armor. Here’s everything else we know so far about Minecraft Legends:
Does Minecraft Legends have a release date?
Not an exact one yet. Minecraft Legends is launching sometime in 2023, Mojang has said. We don’t know much more than that yet. What we do know is that Minecraft Legends was revealed during the Xbox Showcase in June 2022, which Microsoft emphasized was focused on games launching within the next 12 months. If all goes according to plan, it sounds like Minecraft Legends is planned for the first half of 2023, then.
When it does arrive, we know that Minecraft Legends will launch on PC, consoles, and be included in Xbox Game Pass.
Here’s the first Minecraft Legends trailer
This may be just a first teaser, but there’s a lot going on in the Minecraft Legends trailer—including a little look at gameplay. The first bits here are of course an animated cinematic like Mojang sometimes produces for other Minecraft reveals and projects.
Minecraft Legends “tells the story of the Overworld uniting against an invasion by the ravenous piglins,” it says. “According to the legend, only you can bring together the mobs of the Overworld and help them defend their home.”
Based on that, it makes a lot of sense that we see the player riding their horse at the head of an army full of creepers, zombies, and skeletons. It looks like longtime enemies are all going to come together to kick the piglins back into the Nether.
So what is the Minecraft Legends gameplay like?
Here’s what Mojang has said about Legends so far in its announcement post: “You will defend peaceful settlements and fight hordes of piglins to stop the spread of their Nether corruption. You are the center of every battle you lead, fighting alongside your allies while giving them directions.”
You can spot a few peeks at that in the reveal trailer if you’re paying attention. The player rides a horse, followed by mob units, waving a blue flag in a way that looks like they’re calling their army to their position. You can also see the player and their mob pals fighting a horde of piglins and assaulting a grim-looking Nether fort with a portal at its center.
Like Minecraft Dungeons (opens in new tab), this definitely isn’t going to be the same kind of crafting and building as regular Minecraft. In Legends, it looks like you’ll do a lot of riding around on horseback, leading your mob army, and swinging a sword at piglin enemies.
In another livestream, Mojang Studios executive producer Dennis Ries says “as you explore the lush biomes you collect resources and then you use those resources to build defenses.”
You can see just a quick look at those player fortifications in the trailer too: a player stands nearby while a large oak log fortress rises into place.
Is there multiplayer in Minecraft Legends? Crossplay?
Yes! Minecraft Legends will have co-op and competitive multiplayer, Xbox has announced. We don’t know anything else about how multiplayer works just yet.
As for crossplay, we can pretty safely bet that there will at least be cross-platform multiplayer between PC and Xbox players. Since Mojang eventually added cross-platform multiplayer to Minecraft Dungeons for PC and all consoles, it seems fair to hope that it will push for that at launch with Legends.
Who’s developing Minecraft Legends?
It turns out that Mojang isn’t developing Minecraft Legends itself. It’s actually being developed by Blackbird Interactive, the studio that created spaceship deconstruction sim Hardspace: Shipbreaker (which we gave an excellent 91% review) and is also working on the RTS Crossfire: Legion.
Mojang says that BBI has a team specifically dedicated to work on Minecraft Legends and even though it isn’t being handled by the in-house team, it sure sounds like it’s in experienced hands.
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