Minecraft Dungeons 2 is taking a bolder step forward, inspired by the positive response to its predecessor to springboard ahead with a more well-rounded take on the action RPG formula. For the team at Mojang, that involved building on the first game’s established strengths while also introducing new features such as an actual endgame. Ahead of its launch, I sat down to chat with Creative Director Måns Olson and Design Director Laura de Llorens about expanding on what the original game had to offer.
“In general, we tried to expand on almost every one of the vectors that we explored in the first game,” de Llorens tells me. “We knew what our strong pillars were, and we decided to expand on each one of them.” Where the original was more linear, guiding you through fairly straightforward missions from a central hub, Minecraft Dungeons 2 wraps its playthrough into a broader open world. Instead of just one piece of armor, you now equip four, along with three additional talismans to create a deeper potential for buildcrafting.
The first Minecraft Dungeons “had a pillar that said ‘approachable with depth,'” Olson explains, “and at the beginning of this game we had a pillar that was ‘still approachable, even deeper.’ We really want to push those both at the same time.” He says the team tried to steer clear of too much hand-holding during testing, and not push systems on players: “That complexity, we try to make sure it’s there, but that you don’t necessarily have to engage with it, and then it grows with you a little bit as you play the game.”
Olson does note that you might start to find things more challenging if you avoid thinking about your build as you get into the late game and mobs start scaling up. “At that point, you may want to start interacting with these systems – but the hope is that by the time you get there, most players are ready for that. We still allow quite a big range; you don’t have to perfectly min-max your build, but we do expect that you have spent some time doing enchantments.”
Because Minecraft Dungeons 2 is a sequel, the studio wanted to make sure its existing player base was well-served. Olson says the thinking is that the minimum age is “about one year up” from the original. “It’s been more than a year since we released the first game, but we kind of acknowledge that we need a little bit of extra complexity and depth in this game.”
One way that extra depth is implemented is in the endgame – rather than simply replaying the campaign missions again, there’s now a post-story feature called Soul Storms. “One area at a time in the world gets affected by a Soul Storm,” Olson explains, “Then something called Soul Generators start spawning. You can pick and choose a little bit which Storm Generators you want to defeat because they come in different difficulties, and by the time you defeat three of them, you’ve defeated the Soul Storm, and you get some extra good gear.”
He adds that, along with Soul Storms, players will likely want to keep running dungeons and rifts in the endgame to pick up any enchantment books they haven’t found. Earning more character levels, meanwhile, gradually raises your enchantment limit, and also improves your chance of finding unique items.
“With that said, keeping up with expectations from players during endgame is a notoriously difficult challenge,” Olson admits. “There’s always a desire for more, and players tend to consume this type of content faster than it can be made, because once the game is up, people are excited. I’m the same way when I play games, you know? You get into them.”
To help satiate that endless desire, there are already two pieces of DLC on the cards, and Olson notes there will be free updates alongside these. “We have a bunch more plans, things we want to do over time to further increase the endgame experience, but nothing that’s been announced yet. But we will keep updating the game and do a couple more things.”
One element I wouldn’t hold your breath for is WASD controls. They’ve become increasingly popular in the likes of Path of Exile 2 and Diablo 4, and Olson says the team is aware “it’s a thing a lot of players want.” However, he notes that implementing them is more complicated than it might seem, because “it doesn’t map as naturally to a gamepad as click-to-move does.” As a result, while such a scheme is on Mojang’s radar as a consideration, there’s nothing announced, and Olson tells me he doesn’t want to make any guarantees for now.
Minecraft Dungeons 2 releases on Tuesday September 29. As a fan of the first, it certainly sounds as though Mojang is making smart moves to enhance and expand what worked about the original, while adding some welcome new features along the way. It’ll even be making its own mark on the base game in 2027, when the Minecraft Sift dimension comes to Java and Bedrock.