Game Designer Pontus Hammarberg joins Level Designer Christian Berg Double Eleven and Mojang for the 2020 Minecraft Dungeons – Environments Overview trailer recently released giving a further look into the mechanics behind the most unique spin on the Minecraft universe yet. The dungeon crawler / action adventure RPG to be published by Xbox Game Studios got its first gameplay showing at Gamescom 2019 and Microsoft’s X019 event after being announced at a Minecon event beforehand.
Players are able to sign up now for early access but invites will be sent to a random selection of players only. The full game will release in April 2020 for PC, Xbox, Nintendo Switch, and PS4.
The game focuses on rewarding exploration, combat with well known Minecraft enemies, and perhaps some new ones as well – and heavy RPG elements influenced by all of the 3rd person, top down games which have come before it. There’s also co-op, and the title seems to be another ‘easy to pick up, challenging to master’ style game which means all different family members and friends can potentially enjoy it together regardless of skill level. Here’s hoping there’s cross-play support across all four platforms so it doesn’t matter which console is available for squadding up too!
Today’s new trailer shows off the biomes, gameplay, aesthetics, mood and story element of each environment and even how these interact with strategy, enemy unit resources, capabilities, and more. Every level is based off of the Minecraft sandbox title that has exploded in popularity after humble beginnings as one of the most ambitious indie games of all time (and one of the first modern indie games in general).
Special hand made elements are placed for an ideal single player or co-op experience with the linear storyline providing a basis for each environment. The dungeons can have new experiences in them, but procedural generation artificial intelligence has been fed tons of level segments which were made by hand with proper gameplay pacing and therefore the level will have an identity by overarching design as well as moment to moment action. Levels also have a strong focus on which moment of the story is going on, which of course, are a major driving point for the role playing games genre.
