Minecraft Legends

 Another one...

For a very long, an utterly peaceable time period, Minecraft was the absolute pinnacle of it's own brand. A video game of limitless potential where players were thrown into a world with the tools to harvest it's very organs in order to build whatever their minds could conjure. It was a purity of concept and execution that could only be limited with the confines of genres and mechanics. Minecraft simply was, that was all there ever needed to be. Of course, in the pursuit of remaining fresh, Minecraft has remade and remodelled itself over the years and even the core game has, in my opinion, crossed the pale from a game that was instantly intuitive to one you need to navigate with the Wikipedia window constantly open, but the heart of that original premise is still very much beating; which is why I find it totally wild whenever the Minecraft brand tries to branch itself out.

No, I'm not ragging on the Lego Sets, or the merchandise or the >shudder< joke books- I'm talking about the various Minecraft Universe games that exist. Games like Telltale's Minecraft game: Minecraft Storymode. What turned out to be, in my opinion, a rather limp fantasy story loosely stretched over the Minecraft brand and playing vague lip-service to the very meta nature of the game they were working with. They treated Minecraft like a game only, when Minecraft is very much more than that. It's a foundation that, at times, feels close to a service, which could have facilitated a much more clever and outside of the box story had 'Minecraft: Story mode' been more ambitious. But then such is what happens when you try to box in a game of ultimate freedom into the confines of a basic 'heroes fight the villains' story.

Then again with Minecraft 'Dungeons' did the franchise try something different, and again it felt weird. Bringing in Diablo-style ARPG action with item looting and classes and the works; Minecraft Dungeons felt like a very polished game made using the Minecraft foundation that wouldn't have at all worked divorced from the context of the game it was working with. As it stands I think that dungeons is completely fine, but also utterly non essential. There's no real value imparted on the Minecraft brand beyond, I suppose, providing a better basic combat model than base Minecraft does. Oh, and throwing some cool enemy designs at us which would look great implemented into real Minecraft, but probably never will be. (The base game could use some more varied enemies in my opinion; give the Overworld some edge to it.)

And now we've been struck again with the arrow of 'try something new' now that Minecraft appears to have taken influence from games that were in turn influenced by them. 'Minecraft Legends' is another recontextualizing of the Minecraft foundations that bares a passing resemblance to Dragon's Quest Builders. (Which is, in itself, a Minecraft derivative.) There seems to be simple RTS mechanics and more narrative trappings slapped on to give this new gameplay purpose. This one, at least, holds some potential for tapping directly into the building and creative routes of Minecraft, albeit in a stunted and limiting manner, and it's already tipped to be the next bold frontier of the brand. I can't say I quite understand what it is that Minecraft is going for, but I respect the idea of 'widening appeal' at least.

Minecraft Legends tells the paint-by-numbers story of an invasion from the hellish forces of the Nether that needs to be repelled by hoards of minion creatures that the player can send to attack the fortifications of their foes. Players will be base building and forging fortifications, so that the Todd Howards in the crowd can find what they're looking for, and some mild terrain deformation if I've examined this trailer correctly. Of course in this early stage we have very little tangible information regarding the game's specifics and go only go through the snippets of gameplay offered in this reveal. We can't yet say the extent of the strategic elements and whether we'll be managing resource lines in order to funnel unit construction and a deluge of reinforcements. 

What we do know, and very much fitting this style of game, is that there will be PVP elements so that players can test their strategy skills against one another, and this is either an indication of the depth of Legend's strategic features or a total misstep on Mojang's part about what online strategy players want. Competitive strategy only really works when you have distinct styles of play, which can be as innocuous and happenstance as the method you choose to design to strategy (which is indicative of any old game in this style) to the distinct modals or characters that players will choose to become familiar with in order to provide buffs, bonuses or unique unit types. If they want a solid PVP offer, Minecraft Legends definitely wants to have the latter level of design complexities, but whether or not they'll bother rise to such occasions waits to be seen.

Now I am going to throw shade at the choice of having a central hero unit in battle, which sort of makes this look like a Musou game. In fact, very muck akin to Warrior games it seems that the hero not only rides at the head of his forces into battle, but can even take a swing themselves from atop their steeds. I think such a focus all to often drags attention away from the strategy and puts too much emphasis on the core leading individual. Something I noticed when I played 'Divinity: Dragon Commander' was how much more engaging it was to totally ignore the 'Dragon' mode and just play it as a pure RTS. I wonder how Legends will cater to people who want to play like that considering they've yet to even show us the requisite bird's eye camera view. Right now I don't even know if I can call this a 'my first RTS' style game, because Army Men RTS already covered that demographically neatly and with grace and Legends has yet to even match that in it's previews.

But even though I don't understand, nor entirely agree with Minecraft's perplexing attempts to branch out their genres; I respect the idea of trying to differentiate the Minecraft offerings. Beyond just generating flat revenue bumps for the Mojang team, these games allow for utterly fresh experiences to be had within the Minecraft ecosystem which keeps player within their blocky claws, which is undeniably beneficial to Minecraft's staying power outside of the core demographics. Fans of ARPGs and strategy games, including those too intimidated by being given a blank slate and told to do whatever they want, can find solace in these more focused experiences and for a world like Minecraft, the more people get involved the better. So I guess we'll have to wait and see how Legends ends up shaping. And pray that they get around to that Bird's eye cam. It's really important for an RTS!