Mojang Studios Celebrates Success As Minecraft Dungeons Finally Comes To Steam

Minecraft Dungeons has had a long and successful journey since its initial release almost a year and a half ago, and it is now poised to embark on the next chapter of its adventure. Today, Minecraft Dungeons Ultimate Edition is available for a whole new group of players on Steam who may not have experienced what this unique action RPG has to offer. This is the perfect start for Mojang Studios’ latest project on Steam as it includes the base game and all previously released DLCs.

To mark the occasion, I had the opportunity to speak with executive producer David Nisshagen and game director MÃ¥ns Olson. We discussed how Minecraft Dungeons got to this point, what it took to release the game on Steam, and a little clue as to what’s to come for the game.

Minecraft Dungeons has arrived so far

With the release of the Echoing Void DLC, Minecraft Dungeons officially concluded the story that followed the Arch-Illager and the Orb of Dominance. When Minecraft Dungeons was first released, the general consensus was that it had a wonderful foundation, but was a bit light on content (especially in the Endgame). Mojang Studios isn’t known for leaving a game alone, however, and has released a slew of paid DLC updates and expansions for its title in the months following launch, including more than a dozen updates. day, featuring six premium expansions, which means Minecraft Dungeons is a much bigger game than it was at launch. I’ve already explored in depth why I think Minecraft is the best game ever, and Minecraft Dungeons was certainly part of that discussion, especially when it comes to Xbox games.

“We had a lot of plans for things that we would like to release… mostly to bring more content to the players,” said Olson. “So with all of the DLC, we’ve released some free content that we think complements the base game experience well.”

Devotion to Minecraft Dungeons has led to over 10 million unique players.

However, it was not all set in stone from the start, with Nisshagen adding, “A lot of these things, from our perspective, I won’t say they were experimental, but they were things we liked to try. . We don’t have one. Blueprint. We try things that we think are fun and cool. And that also seems to be very popular with the players, doesn’t it? So having that kind of light approach, trying things, was a very nice trip. “

Many community-requested features and changes, such as cross-play and cross-save support, were added to Minecraft Dungeons after its release. There have also been significant content additions to the endgame of Minecraft Dungeons, such as exciting Ancient Hunts, all-new secret levels, new gear and enchantments, and much more. These have all been released for free, while new story content has been explored in larger paid expansions.

This devotion to gaming has led Minecraft Dungeons to rack up over 10 million unique players across all of its platforms. Olson and Nisshagen have confirmed that the number of players is indeed higher now, but they have chosen not to reveal the exact number.

With Minecraft Dungeons’ latest DLC concluding its current story, however, and the Ultimate Edition bundle all Minecraft Dungeons content in one complete set, many players are wondering what will come next. When I asked about it, Olson said, “We’re not ready to talk about all of our future plans. As you may have guessed, there is more to come in the not-so-distant future. game, and we’re not done with Minecraft Dungeons. We’re done with the story of the Arch-Illager and related DLCs, but we have some exciting plans, I think, for what’s to come.

A whole new pool of players

“Steam is a very interesting platform in that it is very important,” said Nisshagen. “It’s especially important in Sweden or Scandinavia, so it’s almost considered a bit of the natural state. A game should be on Steam, so we’re very happy to be able to bring dungeons there.”

Minecraft Dungeons, of course, was already available on PC through the Microsoft Store and Mojang Studios’ own launcher, which can also be used to play Minecraft: Java Edition. However, a large number of PC gamers play almost exclusively through Steam, which is by far the largest single platform to buy and play PC games in many parts of the world. Minecraft Dungeons is the latest Microsoft game to arrive on Steam, alongside titles like Halo: The Master Chief Collection, which means the game is about to be exposed to a whole new pool of potential players.

I asked Nisshagen and Olson about their experience with porting Minecraft Dungeons to Steam, and luckily it seemed like a relatively painless process. Between Minecraft Dungeons already available through Mojang’s PC launcher (which apparently shares many similarities with Steam), Steam support, and Mojang’s own experience with multi-platform game support, bringing Minecraft Dungeons to Steam was simple. One thing that was important to Mojang, however, was making sure that the experience on Steam matched the experience everywhere else.

Minecraft Dungeons offers the exact same experience for everyone

“If we’re on a platform, we want it to be treated like all other platforms – we want full parity,” Nisshagen said. “No one should have a better or worse experience because you choose to play the game on a platform you own or love. And, to some extent, it causes us a bit of a headache. We could have done it. things are more automatic with cross-platform progression if we look at some platforms and away from others. It’s a little more manual now … but we have full parity, and we treat every platform the same. We think it is as it should be. “

This means Minecraft Dungeons on Steam still fully supports cross play. and player-centric and cross-save features, such as players being able to play with friends who have DLC expansions, even when they don’t. Besides being through the Steam platform, Minecraft Dungeons offers pretty much the same experience for everyone, and it’s great to see.

Minecraft Dungeons is available now via Steam, joining Minecraft Dungeons on the Xbox, PC, PlayStation and Switch platforms. Minecraft Dungeons is also available through Xbox Game Pass and Xbox Cloud Gaming. When you grab Minecraft Dungeons on Steam, you get the Ultimate Edition, so you don’t have to worry about missing anything.