Minecraft creator Markus “Notch” Persson caused some confusion over the weekend when “Minecraft 2 has basically been announced” after the immense majority of respondents answered a vote on X he said that’s what they wanted him to do. Not literally Minecraft 2, of course – it’s not allowed to do that – but a “spiritual successor” similar to the original. He sounded completely sedate then, but now he seems to have changed his mind.
“I talked to the guys in the office” – Persson he tweeted earlier this week (via GamesRadar). “It looks like we’re making levers and boxes! The turning point was when a PC player commented that this seemed interesting, lol. Yes, I still love PC Gamer.”
So if you were looking forward to Minecraft 2, well, we’re sorry about that. But in our defense it wasn’t entirely our doing. In the survey that started this whole business, Persson didn’t seem very enthusiastic about doing another thing like Minecraft, saying that spiritual successors to popular games are often “smuggled” and “tragic,” before repeating that sentiment in response to a user on X who said he felt “betrayed” by the decision to change direction.
“Trust me, a spiritual successor would be a lot less fun than a dungeon roguelike,” he said he wrote. “They’re always kind of sad dumps of nostalgia.”
The roguelike dungeon in question is Levers and Chests, which Persson began teasing in 2024 with his modern studio BitShift Entertainment. And honestly, I think it looks more compelling than something like Minecraft Redux – although to be fair, I say this as someone who is more willing to go for something like that than most anyway. Persson actually congratulated one of my favorites of the genre, saying he hoped Levers and Chests “will be at least half as fun as The Legend of Grimrock 2“
Time stops when it’s not providing input, and increases speed the more queued commands you enter, so you can just spam actions without having to wait for the animation to finish, or click slowly to enjoy the animations. Oh and somehow ignore the rotating portraits he added that… pic.twitter.com/V5DwY49RiKSeptember 3, 2024
As for Minecraft 2, “You’ll have to ask Microsoft about that,” Persson he wrotereminding everyone that the game is here to stay from his hands for a decade now. I wouldn’t hold my breath waiting for that to happen, though – Minecraft is still a monster – and even if it does one day, Persson will almost certainly not be involved: he’s been left out of the 10th anniversary celebrations.vol anniversary in 2019 over his “comments and opinions”, a reference to Persson’s many transphobic and anti-feminist statements in the years following the sale of Mojang to Microsoft.
