Sneak Peek at the Upcoming Minecraft: Legends

Just recently, IGN, Nintendo, Xbox, and Minecraft's official YouTube channels uploaded a new video. This video is about 2 minutes long and has a combined view of 5.839 million views as of the writing of this article. The video shows us a Villager reading a book to a baby villager in the midst of the night. In the book was a tale that was told from generations to generations…

In one peaceful day, villagers were doing their same routine; talking with each other, farming, doing all the menial tasks and labors when suddenly, a portal popped up and a Piglin began to emerge, followed by another one. Then a bigger sized Piglin came through the same portal… This video isn't a normal Minecraft Update trailer. It's a new trailer for a game that was being developed 4 years ago, back in 2018…

Minecraft: Legends Mojang’s First RTS

Minecraft: Legends is a unique action strategy game developed by Mojang and Blackbird Interactives that is based in Vancouver, Canada. The game focuses on defending the Overworld against the invading mobs from the Nether. Gather and unite the forces, the mobs of the Overworld against the Nether invasion by commanding them real-time through the battle and liberate the invaded areas to push the invading forces back to where they belong.

Gameplay

Based on the trailer and the recent video released by IGN titled “Minecraft Legends - Developer Overview | Xbox & Bethesda Showcase 2022”, you are able to create walls and defend from the invasions, rally mobs for you to command in a battle, and siege invader settlements and possibly fortresses. This is somehow similar to RTS games back in the day like Age of Empires, Command and Conquer, and DOTA where you can build and develop bases or settlements and make it into an impregnable fortress town or cities, do research to improve your units' stats, command your armies, macro and micro manage your troops, and lead them to victory. The difference being Legends also is an RPG type where you also have a character you control to do those stuff.

This gameplay makes the RTS genre more immersive as you are put on the frontlines to lead your army and develop your strongholds, potentially encouraging both RTS gamers and RPG gamers to play the game.

History

The game was just announced back on June 13, 2022, through the various YouTube channels which gives the impression that it is still in the early stages of its development but with the latter half of the video showing a Pre-release gameplay footage, signifying that the game was already in development way back and now has a fully pledge working game that can be played and enjoyed by players that could get a hand on it.

With the release of the video from IGN where they interviewed Dennis Ries, an Executive Producer at Mojang, gave more information through the history of the development. According to him, the game started way back in 2018 when staff at their office were talking about what game genre they really enjoy, and what came out was an action and strategy type game. This led them to begin looking for a partner studio that can help them bring this into life.

The project began at earnest and has been given a codename. The codename they use for the project was “Badger” and has been hinted at the 2018 Minecon live by Jeb's shirt, showing a shape of a Badger head design on the front. And according to Dennis, this was an easter egg for this upcoming game.

What's to be expected from this Action Strategy Game?

With the game revealed to be released in the following year, many things can change as stated in the trailer and interview. Changes aside though, we can expect a narratively driven game which could be a story, as this game was about a legend, a story passed down from generations to generation.

The game is officially announced to be released on Windows, Xbox, PlayStation, Steam, and Nintendo Switch, and most likely xbox game pass, allowing a wide range of players to get their hands on a copy and play the new action strategy game on launch. In addition to that, it is also known that the game will also have an online campaign co-op and competitive multiplayer. More details of this will be announced later this year. Cross-platform gameplay can also be expected with how the game will be simultaneously released on multiple platforms.

The game has a 3rd person perspective RPG style gameplay. There could also be some item management and stats management similar to their dungeon-crawler game, Minecraft: Dungeons. This can definitely pull various players from the RPG community to try and play the game and potentially influence a new batch of Minecraft sandbox players, so expect epic battles, diverse life, rich resources, valuable alliances, and unexpected friends, all within the Minecraft universe you love.

There are also the RTS mechanics to the game like rallying and commanding units. Building fortresses or outposts in strategic locations. Attacking and liberating areas invaded by the invaders. And with those, there could also potentially be resource management as there is a building mechanic in the game. Alliance making is also mentioned but with little to no details made public, we could speculate an alliance mechanic similar to a faction type alliance mechanic. With all the real-time decision making and strategy development, RTS gamers could be pulled in to play the game similar to how RPG gamers are pulled in with its unique gameplay and mechanics.

Minecraft players playing the sandbox version can also expect new stuff to be added in game from the Legends as the two universe may be connected, allowing new cool stuff to be added on the later updates. Archeology for example can be connected to the Legends, allowing a wide range of features to be included in the Sandbox game.

For theorists and lore enthusiasts, lots of information can be dug up from the game as the game can be considered a prequel to the Sandbox version of Minecraft. The invaders coming from the Nether with portals can explain why there are scattered Ruined Nether Portals in the game. The Bastion Remnants are the last remaining safe haven for the Invaders that once tried conquering the Overworld. This is a treasure trove for those creating a lore for the game and identifying the overall story of how Minecraft came to be.

Release Date? Pre-order?

No news has been announced yet if the game is available for pre-order yet, and all we have for a release date is Minecraft Legends coming sometime in 2023. However, you can follow their official twitter account for news or join their official discord server for an update. 

In my opinion…

With a year left for us to wait for it, the game could change drastically and contain stuff we didn't see in the trailer. There could also be some stuff we saw get removed. It's still under development after all. I am personally excited for the game and will probably get it depending on the outcome! It screams nostalgia and hype for me due to how it feels similar to a hit Minecraft music video series. In addition to those, RTS type games like this are one of my favorite game genres as I grow from playing Command & Conquer and Age of Empires.

In the end, what we are truly hoping to see is to play the game with excitement, enjoyment, and hopefully, with friends to help us manage the Creepers we will command to not blow ourselves up.

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