Minecraft Dungeons
MINECRAFT DUNGEONS is a lightweight dungeon crawler that keeps the sandbox’s playful humour.
I’m in a dark crypt, surrounded by skeletons and creepers. I’m blasting mobs with my firework arrows which explode into a cloud of colourful sparks, dual-wielding sickles that freeze enemies, and harvesting the souls of the fallen to power my laser cube that obliterates everything in my path. Throughout this whole spectacle, the llama I’ve summoned keeps charging head-first into mobs in a throw of spitting rage. It’s ridiculous, and I’m enjoying every second.
It’s safe to say that Minecraft Dungeons doesn’t take itself too seriously. It’s set in the same universe as its sandbox predecessor, but there’s no crafting or building in his world. It’s a dungeon crawler that challenges you to furiously hack-andslash your way through hordes of enemies with an arsenal of fun enchantments and items. I’ve cleaved a swathe through hordes of slime cubes, shot a mass of burning (and exploding) arrows at spiders, and gone toe to toe with sinister, teleporting Endermen. It’s bombastic, frantic fun, and it offers four-player local or online co-op so your friends can get in on its blocky brawls too.
The story is fairly straightforward. The main villain is the evil ArchIllager who finds a powerful artefact called the Orb of Dominance and
seeks revenge on those who shunned and bullied him. He’s gathered an army of familiar Minecraft foes to take over the world, and your party must stop him. Occasionally you’ll be tasked with freeing captured villagers as a challenge within a level, but the story is mostly just a reason for mindless brawling. Although, it does have a grand Lord of the Rings-inspired narrator who introduces the goal of each level – a nice touch.
The world of Minecraft Dungeons has been given a glorious glow up from its sandbox counterpart. There are a handful of different biomes for you to choose from, including woodland, mine, swamp, temple and canyon areas, each with their own loot drops and enemy types. One of my favourites is Fiery Forge, where glowing red lava cascades into the lower layers of the level. It looks amazing against the blue-infused iron walls of the forge.
It’s also refreshing to see Minecraft’s world from an isometric perspective. In another level, Redstone Mines, you can peer down the mine shafts and watch pulleys lift out the glowing Redstone, giving the level a great sense of depth and character. Minecraft Dungeons catapults the blocky world to new heights. It’s like looking at Minecraft with a load of visual upgrade and ray-tracing mods on – with the bonus that it won’t fry your computer.
HIP TO BE SQUARE
The graphics look even better during the bombastic combat. You’ll be dodging exploding Creepers, sidestepping incoming fiery arrows, and rolling away from potions lobbed by wizards that unleash a haze of purple poisonous smoke. Stir in enchanted weapons and powerful artefacts and battles are a frantic mess of vibrant colour and explosions. It’s bonkers.
Minecraft Dungeons also has a cheeky sense of humour, inherited from its sandbox sibling. Arrows comedically stick out of enemies like they’re pin cushions, and keys that unlock doors spring legs and try to run away when you’re attacked. There are even mini Creepers that rush you and gnaw at your knees. The Illagers have even kept their curious nasally greeting that will be a familiar sound for Minecraft players.
Although each level is procedurally generated, there’s always a clear pathway with plenty of nooks and crannies to explore. Each level has it’s own mini-dungeon or crypt if you’re hunting for extra loot, and some levels even have hidden secrets to new areas or special weapons. You’re also given map markers at the edge of the screen to show where your goal is, a bottomless healing potion with a 30-second cooldown, and three lives. With this generous toolset, Mojang has focused
The story is mostly just a reason for mindless brawling.
on fun and spectacle rather than tactical challenge.
Strategising and theory crafting are great, but charging in headfirst and hacking and slashing through a monster-filled cavern has its own charm. With only a handful of levels, you’ll be repeating the same runs a lot, but it’s more for finding an item you missed or a hidden secret than tedious grinding. Finishing the campaign, from tutorial to final boss, took me a handful of hours.
Each level also comes with a threat slider that lets you adjust how easy or hard it is. The slider will start on a recommended difficulty based on your character’s power and, in my experience, it’s been pretty spot on. The first half of the campaign is pretty breezy but the latter half definitely requires more attention to artefact and potion use. The final level is pretty dramatic, set during a raging storm as you ambush the Arch-Illager’s castle.
If you wanted more of a challenge you can push it up to make mobs beefier and more difficult to defeat. But if you and your friends want to mindlessly block-break through levels you can move the slider down for a more breezy experience. The threat slider is also a great addition for younger players who might be coming off the back of
Minecraft. I mostly kept to the recommended difficulty, but on occasion I would put the threat slider up just to get more powerful weapons, although it would often end with me being quickly sent back to camp, bloodied and bruised.
Unlike the classes and skills you would find in Diablo and other action-RPGs, your character’s abilities come solely from the gear you choose. You have room for a melee weapon, ranged weapon, and a piece of armour, and every item can be upgraded with enchantment points. Each item has a unique set of enchantments attached to it, which you can activate with your points. You might find the same item multiple times, but each one will have different abilities.
Enchantment points are pretty valuable in Minecraft Dungeons, and are only gained when you level up, so to stop players hanging on to weapons they’ve spent all their points on there’s a ‘salvage’ system. If you
were to spend all your enchantment points on a piece of gear only to find a better one down the line, you can salvage your original weapon and get the points back to spend on the new one. This helpful recycling system gives you the freedom to try out new gear and fun abilities without fear of nerfing yourself.
Alongside weapons are artefacts that give you ability bonuses like fire arrows and passive healing. They can be in the form of healing totems, magical amulets, or items that let you summon animal allies. With the right selection of enchantments, weapons, and artefacts, you can put together a pretty powerful character. A build I’m currently rocking is my ‘Soul Eater’ build that harvests all of the ghostly souls of my fallen enemies to use them as a resource to power my artefacts.
A handy feature is the ability to switch out and salvage items on the go, shifting your build to effectively deal with whatever threat you’re up against. As an example, that Soul Eater build is great for large mobs with lots of tasty souls, but against a one-versus-one boss battle, it’s useless. My go-to for bosses is ‘My Body is a Temple’ build made from artefacts and enchanted weapons that rejuvenate my health quickly, letting me bounce back after some brutal blows. There’s enough variation in the loot available to allow for plenty of experimentation.
BLOCK PARTY
I’ve played a lot of Minecraft Dungeons solo, but its chaos is best experienced with a group of friends – four blocky killing machines are always better than one. Players can easily drop in and out of each other’s
sessions, and Mojang has made it so that all the loot you find in multiplayer is yours to keep, meaning everyone gets their own fair share of the goods. The feeling of going back to camp, looking at your loot, and seeing everyone completely rebuild their characters is fun. The ease of playing with friends and its breezy nature makes Minecraft Dungeons a perfect co-op pursuit. Its multiplayer shenanigans feel more in keeping with the Lego games or Castle Crashers than Diablo.
Minecraft Dungeons is the perfect introduction to dungeon crawlers for beginners, and a breezy adventure for veterans. It doesn’t have any really standout ideas or gimmicks, but it’s a fun, streamlined take on the genre. There’s little complexity – no intricate systems to delve into or epic battle plans to be mapped out – so if you prefer an action-RPG to have plenty of depth, then it’s likely that you’ll be disappointed.
Although it doesn’t have Minecraft’s crafting and building there are still plenty of ways to be creative. Building a character through carefully selected items and choosing which enchantments to activate is Dungeons’ own kind of crafting. It’s taken the rigidity out of dungeon crawling systems, in favour of a constant state of experimental flux.
It’s likely that Mojang is planning to expand the world of Minecraft Dungeons. With a mysterious upcoming ‘Island Realms’ option on the overworld map and a curious empty portal, it seems there will be much more to come.
It’s a fun, streamlined take on the dungeon crawl genre.