Minecraft creator Markus Persson said he “basically announced Minecraft 2” after polling his social media followers on what game they wanted him to make next.
The survey listed two options: a roguelike mixed with a first-person tile-based dungeon crawler, and a spiritual successor to Minecraft, which the survey called “Minecraft 2.” At the time of publication of this article, 81% of players chose Minecraft 2 after receiving 282,968 votes.
An sincere and reasonable request for feedback, for once:
The modern game I’m passionately working on is currently geared toward a customary roguelike (e.g. ADOM, nethack, etc.) mixed with a first-person tile-based dungeon crawler (e.g. Legend of Grimrock (especially 2), Eye of the Beholder).
But…
— cutout (@cutout) January 1, 2025
In the next one tweetNotch admitted that he “basically announced Minecraft 2” and he insisted he spoke about the survey “100% seriously.”
“I thought maybe people REALLY want me to make another game very similar to the first one, and I love working on games again,” he continued.
“I don’t care which game I make first (or even if I make more of them), but I know I’m making one, so I thought I’d absolutely be willing to give it a fair chance as a spiritual successor to Minecraft, and posted a poll about it.
“My intention is to be clear and sincere when I say that spiritual successors are usually sort of… you know… slept on. Tragic. I’m afraid something will happen in my next game anyway, but I try to avoid it. So why not do what people WANT and are willing to give me even MORE cash in some way.
“And I respect them for doing it. It’s their job. And from what I understand, they’re letting the studio do their own thing, which seems very fair to me.
On this basis, Notch is indeed starting work on Minecraft’s spiritual successor ten years after Mojang’s sale to Microsoft for $2.5 billion. Of course, Mojang continues to work on the ever-popular Minecraft, releasing multiple updates each year across all platforms where the sandbox game is available. Minecraft is officially the best-selling video game of all time, having sold an incredible 300 million copies. Microsoft hasn’t given any indication that it intends to release Minecraft 2, which isn’t surprising given the popularity of Minecraft. Perhaps this leaves the door open for Notch to fill the gap with the original creator.
As Notch himself noted, it remains to be seen whether “Minecraft 2” will ever see the airy of day. Since its sale to Microsoft, the Swedish developer has launched and stopped numerous games, including the space sandbox game 0x10c (pronounced “Ten to C”). However, in another tweet, Notch said that his chances of completing projects are now higher than before because he has employees he feels responsible for.
I mean, the best I have right now is Adventureland, so yeah, I have no idea
— cutout (@cutout) January 3, 2025
Notch even went further to talk that if Minecraft ever wanted him to make an official Minecraft 2 and both parties agreed to the terms, “I would agree to it.”
“I would even give them a much larger share than I felt obligated to, just to make it clear that I wasn’t doing it with bad intentions,” he continued, before adding, “But I’m going to be a bitch when it comes to working with.”
It seems unlikely that Microsoft would work with Notch, considering it removed his name from Minecraft’s opening credits following various controversial statements he made in the years after Mojang’s sale.
Photo: Yui Mok/PA Images via Getty Images,
Wesley is the UK news editor at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. Wesley can be reached at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wy100@proton.me.
