Minecraft Legends
PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One, Xbox Series
We’re always a little wary of fabricated genre names. Hybrid labels cooked up by studios to describe their creations often tend more toward the aspirational than the descriptive. But if they’re taken as statements of intent, Mojang Studios’ positioning of Minecraft Legends is an intriguing one. Meshing the base building and resource gathering of realtime strategy, the mob stomping of MOBAs and Pikmin-like minion management, ‘action strategy’ seems on first impression a decent label. It’s also something of a misnomer, and one we can only imagine is intended to euphemistically describe this mash-up that wobbles under its own porous weight. Ultimately, we’d suggest ‘monotonous turtling’ as a more apt description.
Ditching the typical strategic birds-eye view, you’re brought down to earth to take control of a squareheaded hero and defend the Overworld from an invading force of piglins (Minecraft’s Nether-dwelling porcine foes). Their fortresses are dotted across a procedurally generated campaign map, in between villages that need protecting when the sun goes down. It leads into a steady cadence – taking the fight to the piglins during the day, before fast-travelling back to whichever village has earned their attention at night – with room to explore the Overworld between battles. Resources, from basic wood and stone to rarer diamond and coal, can be gathered on the fly, as vast areas are picked clean at your command. Troops, too, can be recruited in seconds from portable spawn points, giving you time to explore.
Those forces, though, won’t get far on their own, and must be led into battle using a clunky command system. Nearby troops can be rallied to follow you or sent charging a short distance ahead, and though it’s possible to deliver more precise instructions (issuing an order to a specific type of unit, for instance), delivering them is so unintuitive that it’s rarely worth the effort contorting your fingers. With no way of usefully delineating orders between troops, fights descend into muddled brawls, as blobs of mobs smack into each other until one side keels over. It’s not helped that you lead an army of dunces: units will sit idly by as they’re attacked at range, healing golems often buff one another rather than neighbouring troops, and friendly units frequently wander off the sides of bridges and cliffs when tailing you. The combination of poor unit pathing and imprecise controls makes for a frustrating pairing.
Not that precision is needed much. Each unit notionally fulfils a specific function – stone golems for destroying structures, wood golems for ranged infantry damage – but any semblance of the rock-paper-scissors design quickly falls by the wayside. Each Piglin fortress amounts to little more than a series of defensive structures and enemy spawn points that must be destroyed one by one to clear a path to the centre. Every siege follows the same template: assemble a handful of troops, rush them between as many defensive structures as you can topple before they’re defeated, before returning to your spawners to whip up another force. Later fortresses are spread across cliffs and chasms that must be navigated by constructing bridges and ramps to create a route forward, adding a welcome element of verticality (though sometimes made irritating by your units’ tendency to answer the call of the void). But other attempts to heighten the tension, including the introduction of shield-generating towers that must be destroyed before you can throw a punch at the enemy portal, only prolong the dull repetition of each assault.
Fights descend into muddled brawls, as blobs of mobs smack into each other until one side keels over
That monotony doesn’t really let up. Advanced golems can be unlocked in the late game, and familiar creatures such as zombies, skeletons and creepers join your roster after you complete side missions. But they’re merely beefier forms of the rudimentary golems you start with. Even resource-hungry units such as the brick golem, which looks to offer some variety with its powerful group-shield ability, becomes just another lumbering mass in our mess of an army, unable to be usefully positioned by the restrictive control scheme. Creepers add some explosive excitement, but when the piglins recapture their homestead, we find ourselves unwilling to rescue them. By this point, we’re skipping the optional battles, preferring to race towards the end.
Night-time village holdouts, meanwhile, are more streamlined. Piglins will mark their next target during the day, leaving you to build walls, distribute defensive towers and spawn units ready for that night’s attack. Our minimal resource pool in early defences keeps us scrambling down to the wire, though it’s not long before we discover that several layers of walls and dense tower placements can clear up the most imposing force. Unit management takes a back seat, and your character’s contribution is largely forgettable. Able only to swing your sword to damage the weakest piglins, you’re often left standing around, waiting for your defences to slog through long, invisible enemy health bars.
All of this works better in PvP, if only because the subdued havoc that naturally accompanies competitive multiplayer is a thrill in itself. Procedurally generated maps that stitch together familiar biomes add cosmetic life to skirmishes, and the cel-shaded art style cleverly mutes Minecraft’s garish colours. In time, however, these novelties lose much of their charm, and even younger audiences might not hold on for long (though perhaps just long enough, from Microsoft’s point of view). That sentient creepers will explode themselves on command is unintentionally chilling enough; more uncomfortable is the wave of microtransactions that promises to follow release. An online marketplace on the main menu lists hero skins, mounts and more dollar signs to come, doing little to enliven an already withered seed.