Microsoft reveals Minecraft: Dungeons alongside 'Village and Pillage' update

By Jez Corden
last updated

Mojang's "passion project" Minecraft: Dungeons is nearly ready for the spotlight.

Minecraft Dungeons
Minecraft Dungeons (Image credit: Microsoft / Mojang Studios)

At Minecon 2018, Microsoft unveiled Minecraft: Dungeons, a new title from the team behind Minecraft. Minecraft: Dungeons was described to us as a "passion project," inspired by classic dungeon crawlers. Taking place in the familiar, blocky world of Minecraft, Dungeons will allow teams of up to four players to delve through a diverse range of levels on a quest for loot.

Breaking away from classic Minecraft, Dungeons will feature more advanced visuals while retaining the signature look and feel fans have come to expect. Throughout the game, players will acquire upgrades to their armor and weapons across various environmental biomes, including swamps, mines, and canyons.

Dungeons will feature new mobs, including the corrupted Arch-Illager and its minions, who have enslaved Minecraft's villagers. The trailer seems to hint at different playable class roles, as well as larger monsters lurking in the shadows.

So far, Minecraft: Dungeons has only been announced for PC, and it should launch in 2019. When I asked Mojang about the possibility of hitting other platforms, they said Minecraft has always been a game "for everyone" but had nothing further to announce. But it's fair to expect Dungeons to hit other platforms beyond PC in the future.

Village and Pillage

Minecraft

Minecraft (Image credit: Mojang Studios)

At Minecon 2018, Microsoft also announced a large update for Minecraft that revamps and improves how villagers work within the game, as well as the inclusion of pandas and cats, and new scripting tools which will bring true mods to the Bedrock editions of the game for the first time.

The next big update is dubbed "Village and Pillage," and will put a focus on updating the game's villager settlements in the overworld, adding new types of NPCs to interact with. Additionally, villages will vary by biome aesthetically, and also suffer raids from evil pillagers. Village and Pillage is also slated for a 2019 release.

Fortnite might be hogging the media spotlight these days, but Minecraft remains one of the world's most popular games, climbing up to 91 million active users across 154 million copies sold. You can grab Minecraft for Xbox One or Windows 10 PC for around $25.

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Jez Corden
Jez Corden

Jez Corden is a Senior Editor for Windows Central, focusing primarily on all things Xbox and gaming. Jez is known for breaking exclusive news and analysis as relates to the Microsoft ecosystem while being powered by caffeine. Follow on Twitter @JezCorden and listen to his Xbox Two podcast, all about, you guessed it, Xbox!

5 Comments
  • Interesting that they didn't announce this for Xbox. Even if it does come to Xbox later, which it probably will, it would've been good exposure for the Xbox brand. That really makes me think Mojang is still quite independent still from Microsoft Studios as a whole. I wonder if it have its own launcher on PC like Minecraft: Java Edition or if it will be in a storefront like Minecraft: Windows 10 Edition.
  • You said exactly what I was thinking but worded it better than I ever could.
  • How's about the super duper ultra mega graphics pack?? 😜 Starting to think it died.
  • With regard to the super duper graphics pack, there was a report that they ended up having to rewrite the rendering engine to support the new visuals, no ETA.
  • Yeah, I'm pretty ticked off at the delay on that one. It was shown off E3 2017 and here we are a year and a half later - barely any updates and no release date in sight. Very disappointing.