The sequel to the award winning Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice, Senua returns in a brutal journey of survival through the myth and torment of Viking Iceland. Intent on saving those who have fallen victim to the horrors of tyranny, Senua faces a battle of overcoming the darkness within and without.
Captured on Xbox Series X.
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The Wanderers – The Team Behind Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II’s Incredible Landscapes
2017’s Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice was an exceedingly special game. A bold, brash direction for Ninja Theory, the decision to craft a short, narrative experience revolving around mental health was a brave leap, but one that ultimately paid off. Now, seven years later, the studio is gearing up to reveal a sequel to Senua’s story, built with the same love and care, but expanding on the debut in every conceivable way.
In the run up to launch, we’ll be bringing you the story of Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II from inside the studio itself, as well as stories and lessons from Hellblade’s creative leads. This is Ninja Theory’s ultimate form, filled with industry-leading talent, groundbreaking technology, and one of the most unique approaches to game development you’ve ever seen to fulfil the ultimate goal – the pursuit of true immersion.
When it comes to the environments showcased in Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II, breathtaking doesn’t quite cover it. Despite its linear story, the game showcases a sense of scale that adventures like this don’t often offer, and everything you see is rooted in a familiar realism. Where most games of this kind would confine you to corridors, valleys, and other means of obscuring your view, Hellblade II’s vistas often stretch to the horizon, giving you a sense of the sheer size of Senua’s journey ahead. The idea is clear – this is literal worldbuilding, rooting your journey in a much, much, bigger story.
During our visit to Ninja Theory, we had the opportunity to speak to key creative leads about how the studio achieved this sense of place through location scouting and research, to bring an ethereal, yet believable recreation of medieval Iceland into Hellblade II.
Choosing Iceland
While the first game culminates in Helheim, Hellblade II takes us to Midgard, known in Norse Mythology as the realm of men. The team moved through a process of elimination between several locations before settling on Iceland, which brings unique and encapsulating landscapes – somehow familiar and otherworldly all at once.
One chapter in Hellblade II takes us on a scenic route across the brisk and beautiful beaches of Reykjanestá, situated on the southwest coast of Iceland. This area is characterized by sprawling cliffs and rocky beaches, as well as an abundance of submarine volcanoes. It is, to all intents and purposes, a desolate wasteland, but an utterly phenomenal scene to witness as Senua. Another captures a fictionalized settlement located in Freyslaug, surrounded by rolling verdant hills and inspired by the real, picturesque hot-spring laden scenes of Fosslaug in Northern Iceland.
“The geography in Iceland is better than what we could have imagined,” says Dom Matthews, Ninja Theory Studio Head. “It’s grounded in nature, but it almost feels alien. But because it’s real, as humans it feels right to us – like a real place, even if you’ve never been there.”
“The geography in Iceland is better than what we could have imagined, it’s grounded in nature, but it almost feels alien.”
Dom Matthews
The team crafting Hellblade II‘s environments share an ethos – to stay grounded in this element of naturalness by scanning existing, physical objects into the game. According to Dan Attwell, Environmental Art Director on Hellblade 2, there are over 370 pieces of photogrammetry in the sequel, compared to just one in the first Hellblade.
As I travel around the studio itself, I see chunks of real Icelandic rock scattered around, still being used as reference. It’s a hefty amount of work to get out there and collect the materials, but it’s worth it in the end, as it means less resources are spent on hand-crafting assets to feel realistic – and, as Attwell comments: “You get a level of realism that you can’t get by doing it by hand.”
Mark Slater-Turnstill, VFX Director on Hellblade II, also speaks to another dimension of worldbuilding. He adds that nature is chaotic and unpredictable by design, and that is often hard to replicate organically. Sometimes a rock or a tree might come out a little too perfect if a human is being asked to conjure it up:
“As humans, when you think about an object, you’ve got a vision in your mind that might actually be quite different to the reality,” he adds.
Not Quite As It Appears
Speaking of bending reality, Senua’s experience with psychosis means that the spaces around you are not always as they appear to be. The environmental and visual effects are, for the most part, grounded in reality, but Ninja Theory has the ability to veer into the magical with what Senua will experience as a result of her condition. The visions she experiences will manipulate her surroundings, tying into other gameplay mechanics in a consistently clever way.
“There’s a distinction between realism and believability – you can have fantastical elements that are also entirely believable,” Matthews says. “You’re in Senua’s shoes, trying to understand the world through her eyes, but the really powerful thing is that this isn’t beyond the realms of possibility for people that have experienced psychosis.”
It’s a delicate balance to strike though; Senua’s perspective must be authentic and real to her, but disarming to the player. Slater-Turnstill demonstrates this to me in action at his workstation, leading Senua towards an unassuming rock, which then morphs effortlessly into a stony, human head, before seamlessly opening a new path that was never there before. He must have seen this particular transition dozens of times, but he still smiles at the extremely impressive reveal as it happens.
“We’ve considered what we can use from the existing environment to create an authentic experience of lived psychosis. A lot of it is taking recognizable objects and displaying them in an unnatural way,” Slater-Turnstill explains. “It could be seen as ‘unrealistic’, but it’s not, because in her world, that’s what she’s seeing.”
These blips in reality are of course, a way to display the world through Senua’s lens, but they’re also extremely helpful guidance from a gameplay perspective. In Hellblade II, there’s no map or interface guiding the way, and Attwell chuckles as he adds that they’ve made life quite hard for themselves by not having an in-game HUD.
It means all of the clues on how to proceed have to be shown with audio or visual cues, and this is done so incredibly intuitively; it’s rarely unclear where you need to go, and the narrative paths through these landscapes are crafted so well that it’s impossible to predict what you’re coming up against. There’s no walking into a big clearing that indicates you’re about to get into a brawl loading screen transitions – this is one smooth, seamless adventure where transitions between locations, be it the grounded external world or Senua’s supernatural inner mindscapes – are entirely intentional.
Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II is a masterclass in environmental design; it’s clear that the team has absorbed the very essence of the landscape its building, but cleverly infused with the perfect amount of mythological magic to make for a truly mesmerizing adventure, and a photo mode enthusiast’s dream.
Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II will be released on May 21, 2024 for Xbox Series X|S, Windows PC, Steam and Cloud – and will be available with Xbox Game Pass and PC Game Pass day one.
Visual novel features branching paths, 24 endings, and mini-games.
Bonus rogue-like game Outbreak RPG is designed for replayability.
Greetings Survivors! I’m Julia Wolbach, Co-Founder and Chief Operating Officer of Dead Drop Studios. Today we are launching a two-game pack, Outbreak The Fedora Files: What Lydia Knows, on Xbox Series X|S. This includes our first ever visual novel as well as the rogue-like Outbreak RPG!
Up until now, you may know the Outbreak series for its survival horror gameplay. We love daring players to carefully manage their resources, explore, and conquer unspeakable monsters by the skin of their teeth. This sort of tense gameplay is one way to experience the compelling world of horror, but for this project, I wanted to do something very different.
The horror genre is about more than fun scares and over-the-top gore; character-driven drama drives a compelling story that sticks with players long after it’s over. This switch to the visual novel format allowed me to meaningfully expand on the characters and the universe that we’ve created in a way we simply can’t in a traditional survival horror game. As a woman, I’m also excited to have written our main character as an empowered female lead; instead of serving as a damsel in distress or a mere plot point, Lydia is a passionate heroine with a strong sense of justice and a “can do” ’attitude. She is the type of character that I myself would like to see more of in video games!
An Average day on the Job Becomes Far Deadlier than Lydia Bargained for.
The primary draw of What Lydia Knows is its deep and interactive story. In this canon prequel to the upcoming Outbreak: Shades of Horror, Detective Lydia Daniels is desperately trying to solve the mystery behind her partner’s disappearance. There are so many paths the story can take; not only are there a whopping 24 endings to discover, but there are also constant choices to make and mini-games to complete along the way. This isn’t simply like reading a book or watching a movie; our visual novel takes full advantage of the interactivity of video games to put you and your personality in the driver’s seat. Even the order that you choose to prioritize different parts of your investigation will affect the outcome. Throughout the journey, you’ll meet a diverse cast of shady characters who may either lend a hand or put a wrench in Lydia’s plans. Depending on how you treat these characters and the route you take, aspects of the story will change and lead you to a different destiny. As such, Lydia’s fate is in your hands; if you make the wrong choice, her life may come to an early and tragic end! Completionists will want to replay the game to discover each and every possible epilogue.
One Fateful Night, Cypress Ridge Experiences a Nearly Endless Nightmare.
On the other side of the coin, Outbreak RPG represents yet another way we’ve challenged ourselves to do something different with the Outbreak series. This is a rogue-like, turn-based adventure where survival is far from guaranteed. While most of our games explore survival horror gameplay from an action-oriented perspective, Outbreak RPG instead approaches this from a slower-paced, cerebral point-of-view.
The premise is simple; embark on a quest to evacuate survivors out of Cypress Ridge as the city has fallen to a zombie apocalypse. In this game, though, you need to manage a four-character party, complete with character-specific strengths and weaknesses, to take out deadly foes strategically. Do you attack with Lydia’s handgun for a higher chance of critically injuring monsters, or do you use Hank’s shotgun to hurt multiple ghouls with a single blast? Do you spend a turn to search for supplies or heal, or do you attempt to run away from an encounter entirely? Is it best to use a precious grenade when you’re out of ammo, or should you try to whittle down your opponent with a melee attack? These are the types of questions you’ll constantly need to answer correctly if you’re going to emerge from the city victorious.
In between random battles, you will stumble into events that may aid you in your fight or even deal damage to your party. The timing of your choices in and out of combat will also impact your initiative, which affects your luck. As you rescue each Survivor scattered throughout Cypress Ridge, you’ll receive perks ranging from increased health to powered-up weapons. Once you find all ten civilians, endure a final boss encounter and victory is yours! No play-through of Outbreak RPG is the same, however, and with four difficulty settings, you can re-enter the hellscape for a fresh challenge.
Hungry Players and Zombies Alike Can Chow Down on a Feast of Fun Extras
Aside from the two distinct games included in What Lydia Knows, players can enjoy a variety of extra features! Use the Scene Studio to make and save your own custom scenes using characters and locations you encounter during Lydia’s adventure. Unlock music from across the Outbreak series (including our smash hit Railbreak) and behind-the-scenes concept art as you discover more endings. Once you finish the visual novel, you can even enjoy a preview of the next episode. No matter where you look, What Lydia Knows has so much to see and explore!
Think You’re Fit for the Task, Detective?
Explore a seedy city teeming with the undead when Outbreak The Fedora Files: What Lydia Knows launches for Xbox Series X|S on May 17. Pre-orders begin on May 10th with a 20% discount available for pre-orders and the launch window. Do you have what it takes to solve Cypress Ridge’s latest mystery?
Super and extra-natural phenomena around the world are officially disavowed. In the United States, these phenomena are unofficially investigated by an elite squad of agents known as the Federal Disaster Organic Response Agency, FEDORA. These are their stories…
This two punch, two game pack based in the Outbreak Universe, explore the before and after of the Outbreak with new eyes.
FEDORA Files: What Lydia Knows
In our first file of “The FEDORA Files” three part limited series: What Lydia Knows, play as intrepid detective Lydia Daniels as she tries to discover the mystery behind her partner’s disappearance. Search for clues, probe allies and enemies, and solve the mystery of the Jackson Street Sewers in this installment that acts a prequel to Outbreak: Shades of Horror.
Features
– Narrative rich visual novel with a deep and engrossing storyline.
– Multiple paths and endings to unlock where your choices matter.
– Meet, befriend, or alienate a wide cast of characters where your relationships matter.
– Solve devious puzzles and navigate crazy minigames as you hunt for the truth.
Outbreak RPG
In the aftermath of the Outbreak, play a group of survivors out to rescue their compatriots in Outbreak RPG! A Semi procedurally generated rogue-like RPG, every boot up is a new adventure. Rescued survivors will bring new skills and challenges with them.
Can you survive the Outbreak?!
Features:
– Semi procedurally generated rogue-like RPG
– Lead your party of four survivors through the apocalypse in turn-based combat
– Search for supplies to keep yourself armed and healthy
– Rescue a wide group of survivors, each of which joins your team with unique upgrades and abilities
– Challenging escalating enemy encounters as the city becomes further overrun with the undead
Hilarious and ridiculous dialogue in this non-canon adventure
Discover the two new playable characters from the Godzilla universe in GigaBash, complete with an official trailer to set the stage.
Explore the six iconic Kaiju as we delve into the inspiration behind their designs to help you master your favorites from the Godzilla universe.
Bonus rogue-likHighlights, features and powers of the iconic kaiju and two powerful newcomers.
Beware, citizens… A three-headed shadow looms above the sky while acidic mist suffocates the air below. What doom has crossed over to the GigaBashworld? Introducing the latest additions to the GigaBash roster from the Godzilla universe, King Ghidorah and Hedorah! Let’s take a closer look at what they are capable of.
King Ghidorah
As seen in “Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah (1991)”, you play as Godzilla’s most formidable rival. Your supersonic wings allow you to fly and rain destructive Gravity Beams from above. You can also wind up your wings to produce a powerful shockwave that sends buildings hurling towards the enemy with a single flap. Each of your colossal, horned heads can blast destructive lightning bolt-like Gravity Beams capable of tearing through entire skyscrapers.
Hedorah
As Hedorah, you play as the smog monster that stands taller than Godzilla and can match the King of the Monsters blow for blow. As seen in “Godzilla vs. Hedorah (1971)”, you can spit Acidic Sludge, pollute the air with Acidic Sulfuric Mist, throw deadly mud balls, and even shoot a Hedrium Ray from one of your eyes. You can also dodge oncoming attacks by shifting into your Flying Stage, leaving behind a pool of Acidic Sludge that damages and slows the enemy.
Battle against the OGs
Don’t you have that Kaiju battle matchup idea in mind that has yet to be realized on film? With the additional purchase of the Godzilla 4 Kaiju Pack DLC, you can pit Godzilla, Gigan, Mechagodzilla, and Destoroyah against King Ghidorah and Hedorah to recreate your ultimate Kaiju fantasy.
Check out the new GigaBash Godzilla DLCs All-in-One Showcase video.
Godzilla
Play as the superstar and the OG of the Tokusatsu genre. This version from the 1990s Godzilla movies , features a more predatory-looking head with a sleeker and more powerful body. As Godzilla, you can grab hold of your enemies and ram them toward skyscrapers for big damage. You can fire its iconic heat ray from across the map, incinerating anyone in your way with additional burn damage to enemies when performed as an S-Class!
Gigan
As Gigan, your razor-sharp claws can dice up enemies in a jiffy. They also apply a deadly Bleeding Status that deals additional damage if your victim tries to move around. You can rev up the buzz saw on its abdomen to devastate anything and anyone who comes too close. You can also fire a destructive laser beam that explodes into multiple clusters, keeping enemies at bay while you scheme your next approach.
Mechagodzilla
This version is Nicknamed Kiryu, an anti-Godzilla weapon as seen in the film “Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla (2002)”. Its Weapon Control System allows it to wield a wide arsenal of weapons such as wrist blade, rockets, homing missiles, and railguns, Hyper Maser Cannon and Absolute Zero Cannon. Unique to Mechagodzilla, each of its weapons consumes one of two different types of energy, making it one of the more difficult characters to master. However, in the right hands, it can swiftly annihilate its foes with a merciless display of firepower.
Destoroyah
As seen in “Godzilla vs. Destoroyah (1995),” these microcellular organisms evolve into larger and more destructive stages, ultimately reforming into a single terrible but awesome creature. As Destoroyah, you use your pincer tail to snag and drag enemies across the battlefield. Also your Micro-Oxygen beam can , easily vaporize anything caught in its path.
Beam Clash
The hallmark of any epic Kaiju film is definitely… Beam Clash! That’s right, you can trigger one whenever two beam attacks collide. Mash the attack button to increase your power before this tug-of-war ends in a massive explosion, just like in the movies.
With two of Godzilla’s most fearsome nemeses crossing over into GigaBash along with the characters from the Godzilla 4 Kaiju DLC, that’s a total of six kaijus from the Godzilla universe, along with ten original GigaBash characters from the base game for fans to enjoy. So, will you sow terror as the Nemeses of Godzilla? Or will you team up with old adversaries out of sheer survival instinct to fight off these formidable foes? We await your answer in the arena!
GigaBash combines the chaos and creativity of titles like Power Stone, Super Smash Bros Ultimate and War of Monsters with the jaw-dropping scale of the classic kaiju movies. Play as either a rampaging Titan or a Titan-hunting mecha; summon lightning from the heavens, use a radio tower as a baton, or roll a whole district (and your enemies) into a single massive snowball. Wreak enough havoc and you’ll evolve into your final form, the terrifyingly titanic S-Class.
As Minecraft turns 15 years old, we wanted to take a look back. As one of the most important (and best-selling) games of all time, Minecraft and Mojang’s journey has been incredible to witness – starting as a one-person creation and blossoming into a truly world-changing proposition.
With that in mind, we thought we’d take you back over the biggest moments in Minecraft’s history, year-by-year:
2009: Launching Classic Edition
Image credit: Jan Willem Nijman
On May 16, 2009, it all began. Inspired by the likes of Infiniminer and Dungeon Keeper, Markus ‘Notch’ Persson had begun work on what was initially known simply as “Cave Game” a week earlier, before settling on a catchier title: Minecraft: Order of the Stone. Then he was convinced to choose an even catchier title: Minecraft. What came to be known as the Java Classic Edition lacked much of what we’ve come to know from the game – but the building blocks (pun very much intended) were there.
Classic would generate a world, and allow you to dig and build freely, creating your own geometric slices of paradise in its technicolor world. Over the course of the year, Classic would split into Creative and Survival modes, ushering us closer and closer to the Minecraft we’ve known for a decade and a half.
2010: Minecraft Gets Its Crafting System – Plus Minecarts and Multiplayer
By January of 2010, Minecraft had already amassed over 100,000 players – but some of its most fundamental improvements were still to come – not least making good on that “Craft” part of the title. A crafting system was added late that month, introducing the familiar wood-iron-diamond ‘level’ system for items, and changing, well, everything about how we played the game. Dig-loot-craft-repeat was born.
But that was far from the only major change. By June, minecarts had appeared in the game, changing how players could travel through their worlds and, in August, the first version of multiplayer in Survival mode popped up. So much of Minecraft’s popularity is built on playing with your friends, and this was the first time we could see a glimpse of how huge that would be for the game.
2011: Minecraft 1.0 Released – and the First Port Arrives
If you want a sense of how fast Minecraft grew, consider this. By January of 2011, the game hit a million players. But July, that had jumped to 10 million. And, to top it all off – all of this came before the game had launched its full 1.0 version. That came on November 18, 2011. What came to be known as Minecraft: Java Edition was released during Minecon 2011, bringing everything millions of players were already loving to an even wider audience – even an “ending” to the game with the Ender Dragon boss fight.
And we can’t ignore that 2011 also saw the game’s first-ever non-PC ports. Minecraft: Pocket Edition launched exclusively for the Xperia Play smartphone in August, followed quickly by an iOS version – from these small beginnings, Minecraft would spread across practically every modern gaming device over the years, becoming the phenomenon it has been in the process.
2012: Minecraft Gets Lego-fied, Comes to Xbox 360, and Gets the Pretty Scary Update
If you wanted to pinpoint the moment where Minecraft became more than just a game, look no further than when Lego officially confirmed that Minecraft – in many ways the brick-building hobby’s digital cousin – would become an official set. Lego Minecraft Micro World allowed you to build four cubic vignettes from Minecraft in real-life, complete with Steve and Creeper mini-figs.
In the world of gaming itself, 2012 was no less important. This year marked the first meeting of Minecraft and Xbox, as Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition launched in May, offering a console version of the game to millions of new players. This console edition became the basis for Minecraft’s off-PC future – from here, we’d see the game appear on almost every new Xbox, PlayStation and Nintendo console over the years.
We also saw a landmark new update: Pretty Scary brought a host of new mobs to fight off, and also brought one of the most important blocks in the game’s history – the Command Block became the basis for some of the most impressive creations in Minecraft, adding a level of programming that would allow magnificent ideas to spring forth.
2013: The Redstone Update Changes Everything and Horses Ride In
If 2012’s Command Block was the start of something special, 2013’s Redstone Update was when it got really special. Redstone, a block that allows players to power various elements of the game, had already been introduced, but this update opened up a host of new opportunities. Redstone could now be used to power pressure plates, change how rail blocks worked, detect daylight and much, much more. From here, players began to experiment with how far Redstone could take their creations – all the way up to creating working 8-bit computers inside the game.
On the less complicated side of things, we also got the Horse Update, which changed the game in a more adorable way, allowing you to tame and ride the majestic, blocky beasts and travel your world in a new way. Notably, this was a major moment for how Mojang worked with its community – the Horse Update was inspired by a mod, Mo’ Creatures, and shows how the game has been worked on with the fans themselves (many of whom went onto be Mojang developers, too).
2014: Microsoft Acquires Mojang and The Bountiful Update Blooms
I might not even be writing this article if it weren’t for 2014 – when Microsoft saw quite how earth-shaking Minecraft had become and acquired Mojang for $2.5 billion. After two years of working closely together, the two companies came together to shape the future of the game, which has only continued to grow in the decade since.
In the game itself, the Bountiful Update represented an enormous improvement. Built over a full 10 months, Bountiful saw massive changes to the codebase of the game, invisibly improving everything about the experience – but it also brought floating islands, underwater temples, killer rabbits, and much more.
2015: Minecon Breaks Records, and the HoloLens Demo Wows
Since humble beginnings in 2010, Minecon had been bringing fans of Minecraft together to celebrate the game – and had subsequently become the home of some of the game’s biggest releases. Come this year, it had become a truly enormous affair – record-breaking, even. Held in London, Minecon 2015 sold 10,000 tickets, earning a Guinness World Record for the largest convention in history for a single game.
2015 also saw Mojang showing just how creative it could get with its ideas – the Minecraft HoloLens demo became one of the most talked-about E3 presentations of recent years. The mixed-reality headset could effectively create parts of a Minecraft world amid the real world around you, offering a perspective on the game no one could have imagined. While it never became a full product, it’s a brilliant evocation of how restlessly creative Mojang is with its game.
2016: Hitting 100 Million Sales, and Minecraft: Education Edition Launches
There was no doubt that Minecraft was already a worldwide concern, but 2016 saw its biggest cultural landmark yet – passing 100 million copies sold. In 2016, 53,000 people were buying Minecraft every day – and four copies were even sold in Antarctica. The game has now passed triple that number, but it was here that Minecraft truly set out its stall as one of the most-loved, most important games of all time.
Its influence was so strong, in fact, that 2016 also saw the launch of Minecraft: Education Edition (now simply Minecraft Education). Developed alongside Xbox Game Studios, this version of the game was designed to be used in the classroom, and has allowed kids to build collaboratively, learn from educators inside the game itself, and been updated to include worlds that help learning on Cyber Safety, natural history, and much, much more.
2017: The Better Together Update Unites Players, Minecraft Marketplace Empowers Them
For years, players had been able to get Minecraft on their consoles, but 2017’s Better Together helped make that all the more significant. This was the moment that Mojang began to bring platforms together, allowing anyone with the Bedrock Edition of the game to play together, no matter what device they were playing on. It was a gigantic step, and a true piece of Minecraft magic.
In the same year, Mojang doubled down on its commitment to its community with Minecraft Marketplace – a store that sells curated creator-made skins, texture packs, and maps. Effectively, it offered modders – a huge part of Minecraft’s success over the years – to make money from their creations, and opened the door to literally millions of more people to access their hard work.
2018: Update Aquatic Opens Up New Worlds
70% of Earth is covered with water, and while that ratio may differ in your Minecraft world, that’s still a lot of space you might otherwise not see. Not so after Update Aquatic – the biggest update to Minecraft’s oceans saw new mobs, blocks, and mysteries added to the game’s underwater realms.
From dolphins and turtles to the only-slightly-horrifying Drowned enemies, there was a lot to play with under the sea, not to mention buried treasure, shipwrecks, and reefs to explore.
2019: 10 Years of Minecraft, and the Village & Pillage Update Storms In
A decade is a very long time in gaming, but it was just the start for Minecraft. The 10-year anniversary of the game went hard, not least with a beautiful map that acted as an interactive museum about the game itself – and a re-release of the Classic Edition of the game to show you just how far the game had come.
Looking forward, we also saw the Village & Pillage update, which populated your world in new ways. Revamped villages (and their villagers) now sprung up across the biomes, offering trading, jobs, and more ways to interact. But to combat all this loveliness, we also saw the addition of Pillagers, a new faction of bandit mobs who’d roam the map looking to spoil your good time. Also, pandas were added, which is only ever a good thing.
2020: Nether Update Takes Us Deeper Underground, and Minecraft Dungeons Arrives
The Nether had long been an object of fascination and terror for Minecraft players, offering a whole other dimension to the game. But the Nether Update changed this world of danger forever, adding new biomes and mobs that turned it from a curious, dangerous place into a true realm to explore in itself.
Meanwhile, Mojang also saw fit to release the biggest Minecraft spin-off yet – Minecraft Dungeons twisted the original game’s basics into an all-new action experience. In partnership with Double Eleven, this game offers a new story-driven approach to the Minecraft universe, transforming familiar items, mobs, and blocks into dungeon crawling essentials.
2021: Minecraft Passes 1 Trillion Views on YouTube, While Caves and Cliffs Emerges
YouTube has been an incredibly important part of Minecraft’s history, with creators across the globe enjoying and sharing the game, and becoming famous in their own right as a result. If you want a sense of quite how intertwined the two became, Minecraft became the first entertainment franchise to break through the 1 trillion views mark on YouTube. As YouTube itself put it: “If each of those one trillion views were just one second long, that would add up to over 30,000 years.” Please, take it from me, don’t try and catch up on all of it.
Inside the game, we saw an update so massive it had to be split into two parts. Caves & Cliffs was the most ambitious update Mojang had ever put together to this point, not only adding the expected new mobs, items, and blocks, but adding entire new biomes and overhauling how Minecraft worlds themselves were generated.
2022: New Default Skins Added and The Wild Update Bursts Forth
Skin-swapping had been easy for a long time, but good old default skins Steve and Alex were probably a little lonely come 2022. Enter Noor, Sunny, Ari, Zuri, Makena, Kai, and Efe – new default skins that let players express themselves more easily than ever while jumping into their world.
Meanwhile, the Wild Update included even more new biomes on top of 2021’s Caves & Cliffs, including the Deep Dark, a biome only found underground, replete with ancient cities to discover, and the terrifying, blind Warden enemy. Also: frogs!
2023: Minecraft Legends Offers Another New Adventure, and Trails & Tales Launches
Minecraft Dungeons was only the start. Last year, Minecraft Legends arrived to offer another new look at how Minecraft could be adapted. This action strategy game zoomed way out to offer you a bird’s eye view of the Overworld – and an army of mobs to help you protect it from Piglin hordes.
In Minecraft itself, the Trails & Tales update offered new means of self-expression in your world, not to mention added new stories underground with the addition of archeology in desert biomes. Count yourself lucky if you find the new, rare Cherry Blossom biome – and maybe find your way there on the new camel mob, which has space for you and a friend on its back.
2024: Looking to the Future
And so we reach 2024, asMinecraftturns 15. You might think Mojang might want a bit of a break, but not so – they’ve already released the Armored Paws drop, and announced a massive birthday sale, but there’s so much more still to come. From the upcoming Tricky Trials update to secrets yet to be revealed, this 15th year is, somehow, only the beginning.
Explore randomly generated worlds and build amazing things from the simplest of homes to the grandest of castles. Play in creative mode with unlimited resources or mine deep into the world in survival mode, crafting weapons and armor to fend off the dangerous mobs. Scale craggy mountains, unearth elaborate caves and mine large ore veins. Discover lush cave and dripstone cave biomes. Light up your world with candles to show what a savvy spelunker and master mountaineer you are!
FEATURES:
If you can dream it, you can build it. Put your imagination and limitless resources to work with Creative Mode.
Battle mobs, construct shelters and explore the landscape – it’s all in a day’s work when you try to survive and thrive in Survival Mode.
New tools, locations and spaces are yours to explore, thanks to our regular updates.
Cross-platform play for up to eight players across Windows, PlayStation, Nintendo, Xbox and mobile devices.
Discover skin, texture and mash-up packs from the community! Find out more at minecraft.net/marketplace.
REALMS PLUS:
Play with up to 10 friends cross-platform in worlds that exist any time, anywhere – and get access to over 150 pieces of Marketplace content. Try a free 30-day trial in-app and learn more at minecraft.net/realms/bedrock.
You can also play Minecraft with Xbox Game Pass – check it out at xbox.com/gamepass.
