REVIEW: ‘Minecraft Legends Review’ Provides the Tools to Craft an Entertaining Adventure

With Minecraft’s focus on building spectacular structures and contraptions out of cubes, it’s only natural for developers Mojang and Blackbird Interactive to craft new experiences like Minecraft Legends from relatively simple building blocks. Despite tackling the complex real-time strategy genre, the Xbox Game Studios-published Minecraft Legends is laden with charm and systems that meld to create a new, standalone campaign that eases new players into a fun and familiar world where they can lead armies and topple mighty fortresses with a few simple commands.

At a glance, Minecraft Legends seems more of the same; another survival adventure in a blocky world, but doubling down on its identity allows it to shine in unexpected ways. For long-time fans of Minecraft, Legends presents a new way to play with the familiar, simplifying the tasks of creating structures so players can focus on leading an army of old foes and new friends to save the world from the invading Piglins. Instead of delving down into the world to hunt for resources, players are instead encouraged to explore laterally, looking for resources, mounts, tools, and treasures across an island map that is randomized with each campaign, and best of all, it can be done with up to three friends.

With regard to the campaign, Minecraft Legends does a great job of slowly opening the world and elevating the stakes. Players are introduced to the world with the simple task of summoning a handful of minions to save a single village. Resource gathering and base building quickly become second nature, with tools that allow players to cast a wide net to replenish their wood, stone, and more. Even the act of upgrading your abilities is as simple as creating a new specialized building, and summoning and commanding an army of minions is as simple as pressing a pair of buttons. By the time you’re meant to besiege a massive walled bastion or dismantle a sprawling encampment, it no longer feels like an insurmountable task. While the plot itself is nothing to write home about, it’s presented in a fun and digestible fashion, leaving no doubts about players’ goals in this colorful, imperiled world. 

One of Minecraft’s strengths lies in allowing players to do whatever they want while still providing an overarching long-term goal that can be completely ignored. Minecraft Legends still allows players to complete things whenever and however they like, but there is a natural sense of urgency accompanying the passage of time.

Piglins invade villages, spread their influence with new bases, or upgrade existing ones, and while there’s less to actually do in Minecraft Legends outside of invading outposts or preparing defensive infrastructure, it can still feel like a chore to stop what you’re doing to deal with these new threats.  Most of all, this is compounded by the inability to pause the game. Opening a menu or your map allows things to run in real-time regardless, making it a risky endeavor to have any distractions around while playing.

Minecraft Legends certainly feels more accessible than most other RTS games, but sometimes that’s to its detriment. While the various minions have unique strengths and weaknesses, players will find that there’s little reason to micromanage their army, though they certainly can do so. There’s such a small resource cost to summoning dozens of minions that later battles easily devolve into sending in a cluster of various mobs to destroy Piglin walls, structures and enemies. This was at the default difficulty, showing how even a young audience could enjoy and progress through the campaign. Still, there are easier and harder difficulties for the player struggling with the intended experience, whether it’s due to excessive difficulty or a lack thereof. 

In addition to the campaign, there’s a multiplayer Versus mode and the potential for new bite-sized challenges known as Lost Legends. The Versus mode pits two teams of four players against each other in a competition to invade and destroy the other team’s well, the centerpiece of their base. These are fun and frantic and provide an engaging way to learn the game quickly. While Piglins may not be smart enough to handle a mob of disorganized minions, the same can’t be said for other players; Versus mode is definitely the place to test your strategic prowess.

New players may just be starting out with gathering resources and setting up simple walls, but watching more seasoned players set up a makeshift fortress in the blink of an eye can be humbling and a great learning experience. Some matches certainly feel more one-sided than others, but the loop of creating a base from scratch to fight other players is entertaining enough to merit multiple rounds, especially if you’re playing with your friends. 

The third mode provided is Lost Legends mode, which presents players with smaller gameplay experiences for potential rewards. At present, there’s a single challenge to download, but it’s free and players that beat it are rewarded with a new character skin. As with the other modes, this can be played with up to three people, and it has the potential to keep players coming back if these Lost Legends can provide unique challenges.

At its heart, Minecraft Legends presents a fun, new adventure that shows how versatile the franchise can be. It can be enjoyed in a variety of modes, and as long as your friends are along for the ride, it’s hard to resist coming back for more.

Minecraft: Legends releases on April 18, 2023, on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, and PC.