How Minecraft Legends Evolves The Classic Series Gameplay

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At the Xbox & Bethesda Games Showcase, Mojang revealed Minecraft Legends, a new game that offers an unprecedented style of gameplay compared to its predecessors. The trailer that was shown at the showcase was mostly cinematic, depicting an invasion of Minecraft's Overworld by armies from the Nether, but it showed a few short segments of gameplay towards the end. From what little was seen, it appears to be a genre of game that hasn't yet been tapped into by the Minecraft franchise before.

The original Minecraft is a classic sandbox game, allowing players to explore, gather resources, defeat enemies, and build structures at their leisure. Since its release, it has become the face of the sandbox survival genre, and its gameplay has inspired a number of other games to follow suit. However, this iconic gameplay hasn't been adopted by any of its spin-offs, each of which occupies its own genre and contributes to the further spread of the franchise's household name.

Related: Minecraft's The Wild Update: Everything New & Where To Find It

Minecraft Legends is described as an action strategy game, which is far from the franchise's previous entries. The trailer shows the player character moving exclusively on horseback, using companion spirits of some kind to mine materials and build structures with them. The player appears to be able to attack from horseback with a sword, while also having the ability to wave a flag and rally groups of mobs to their aid. Leading these armies of mobs, the player character attacks an enemy castle, which is destroyed by what appears to be an explosion of the nether portal within. Based on this gameplay, Minecraft Legends seems like a Dynasty Warriors crossover, which probably wasn't what players