Minecraft gets a strategy spinoff, Minecraft Legends

polygon.com:

A Minecraft spinoff is in development from Microsoft, the company announced Sunday during its Xbox and Bethesda Games Showcase. It’s called Minecraft Legends, and it’s expected out in 2023.

Minecraft, the 11-year-old sandbox blockbuster, will look a little different in the upcoming spinoff; it’s expected to be a strategy game — something more akin to StarCraft than the open-endedness of Minecraft’s mainline games. Minecraft Legends still looks like Minecraft, but will have players looking to build and unite worlds through strategy gameplay.

Giant Bomb cofounder Jeff Gerstmann, who last week left the website, first spoke about the Minecraft RTS during a Twitch livestream last week. He said that the storyline and cutscenes for the game are so far unfinished, but that development is far enough along for the game to be announced Sunday.

Microsoft has published other Minecraft spinoffs since acquiring the franchise and developer Mojang in 2014. Minecraft Dungeons, a Minecraft-inspired dungeon crawler that launched in 2020, is its most successful thus far.