What you need to know
- Minecraft Legends is a unique action-strategy spin-off developed by Mojang Studios and Blackbird Interactive.
- It was released on Apr. 18, 2023, but several issues led to a sudden drop-off in interest from the community.
- Mojang has continued to update Legends since then with quality-of-life fixes and new content, but has been unable to revive the game.
- Today, it was confirmed that Minecraft Legends is permanently ending development following the release of its final Lost Legends update.
- The game will still continue to function as it is with all its features and content intact, and Mojang plans to explore other spin-off Minecraft titles in the future.
Today is a sad day... For the five or so people affected by the news. Minecraft Legends is an unfortunate tale for Mojang Studios, with the unique action-strategy game failing to attract any substantial attention from the Minecraft community. Just under nine months after its release, Mojang Studios and Blackbird Interactive are officially throwing in the towel — Minecraft Legends is getting its very last content update today, and then all new development will permanently conclude.
Since launch, we've listened to community feedback and implemented a series of changes and tweaks to make the game better. With that complete, we're now going to take a step back from development.
Mojang Studios
Despite the release of multiple content updates and patches since its release in Apr. 2023 to address the myriad issues afflicting the game, Minecraft Legends never managed to win over the community and has acquired only a very miniscule player base basically since immediately following its release. It seemed inevitable that Mojang and Xbox Game Studios would give up trying to turn Minecraft Legends into a victory, and that day has finally come.
What happens to Minecraft Legends now?
Minecraft Legends is getting one final Lost Legend challenge today, dubbed "Snow vs. Snout." If that sounds familiar, it's because Mojang Studios announced it during Minecraft Live alongside other Minecraft Legends updates, and it was seemingly delayed. Unfortunately, the optimism from that announcement has also dwindled, it seems, considering this challenge is the last update. There is a bright side in all of this, though.
While we won’t be releasing any new content (i.e. updates, Lost Legends, or Marketplace DLC) for Minecraft Legends, the fun doesn't stop here. We'll continue having a blast playing the game alongside our community because those rowdy piglins are showing no signs of slowing down. Our existing Lost Legends challenges will remain available for free, and you’ll still be able to reap the rewards if you claim victory. We will of course continue to offer technical support to players, and we won’t be removing any functionalities or features from the game. PvP and co-op will also remain fully functional, so you can continue playing whether you prefer to take on the piglins by yourself or battle alongside (or against) friends.
Mojang Studios
All existing Minecraft Legends content — including previously released Lost Legends challenges, online multiplayer, and the genuinely improved co-op campaign — will remain fully available to players indefinitely. Mojang Studios is no longer actively developing the game, but will continue to provide technical support and maintain servers to ensure players can still enjoy the game as it is now.
Will Minecraft Legends always be fully functional and content-complete? That's a little more unclear, but Mojang's statement doesn't include any timeframe or even a hint at one, so I'm optimistic that the game will more-or-less continue in its current form into perpetuity, including being available on Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, Windows PC, PS5, PS4, and Switch, with full cross-save and cross-platform support. Minecraft Legends is also included in Xbox Game Pass, PC Game Pass, and Xbox Cloud Gaming, so players will be able to revisit (or try for the first time) Legends on their platform of choice.
So, is Minecraft Legends really dead? In the sense of being able to play it and enjoy what it is... No. However, Legends was supposed to be another perpetual live service game, with monthly updates to add new content and evolve the game, and a Minecraft Marketplace steadily populated by official and community-made content. Mojang Studios wanted to keep players interested with regular injections of new features and improvements, but unfortunately the game in its launch state wasn't enough from the beginning.
Minecraft Legends is in a much better position than when it was released, but it will now always feel unfinished and unrealized. Post-launch support came too slow and did too little, and it largely seemed like the Minecraft team (and subsequently the community) forgot Legends existed completely a few weeks after release. The ending was inevitable, it seems, but I really do believe that Legends had a shot... It just wasn't given a chance to succeed.
What is Minecraft Legends?
Minecraft Legends is a spin-off Minecraft game developed in partnership between Mojang Studios and Blackbird Interactive. It's an action-strategy game, meaning that you take control of an army of friendly mobs and command them in battle against enemy armies and structures, but while being an active part of the battle yourself as a Hero. It was a genuinely unique interpretation of the Minecraft universe, and was the first time Mojang Studios introduced a full campaign with voiced and named characters in the Minecraft universe.
In my Minecraft Legends review, I genuinely enjoyed my time with the game, but recognized that it had issues to resolve. Mojang Studios did slowly fix a lot of those problems, so the game is significantly more fun to play than it was when it first released. Unfortunately, those changes came too late, as community interest dropped off alarmingly fast following the game's launch. Mojang supplemented Minecraft Legends with post-launch quality-of-life fixes, arching campaign and multiplayer improvements and redesigns, and several optional Lost Legends challenges, which task players with overcoming specific situations and restrictions.
It was never one of the best Xbox games, but it felt like Minecraft Legends had the potential to be. Sadly, we'll never see that potential fully realized, with Mojang Studios continuing its unfortunate trend of not giving its Minecraft experiments the same priority as vanilla Minecraft. With so little fanfare, consistent messaging, and post-launch support, it seemed Legends end as a live service game was inevitable. I do still believe Legends is 100% worth exploring even after the arrival of its final update, though, as the game can be a lot of fun in its current form, especially when played with friends.
Not the first death in the Minecraft universe
Minecraft is the best-selling video game of all time with over 300 million copies sold, but that doesn't mean automatic success for everything with the Minecraft name. While vanilla Minecraft is still going strong — and is even getting a movie starring Jason Mamoa and Jack Black — Mojang Studios' attempts to expand the Minecraft universe into a full video game franchise have had mixed results.
It started with Minecraft Earth, a genuinely fascinating augmented reality mobile game similar to Pokémon Go, which let you collect Minecraft mobs and build anything you wanted in the real world. Slow development, highly aggressive microtransactions, and being a little ahead of the curve saw Minecraft Legends shut down forever in July 2021, and the game is now little more than a vague memory in the minds of some.
Minecraft Dungeons was actually mostly a success story, however. The co-op, third-person action-RPG enjoyed a lot of diverse and content-packed DLC expansions, free content updates, and seasonal passes during its lifespan. In a still-baffling move, though, Mojang Studios and Double Eleven announced that Minecraft Dungeons development had been ended for months in the same announcement revealing the game had surpassed 25 million unique players. It was a truly sad day, with many genuinely loving Minecraft Dungeons, but the complete game with all its DLC and added content can still be explored and enjoyed in its entirety right now (and I recommend it wholeheartedly).
We do intend to continue bringing new experiences to the Minecraft universe and give our team the freedom to keep exploring the types of games they're passionate about – just as they did with Dungeons!
Mojang Studios
Now, Minecraft Legends can join the growing Minecraft graveyard (a sub-section in the much larger Microsoft graveyard). Mojang Studios isn't done exploring the possibilities of the Minecraft universe, though. If you want a little more info on the game's final update, you can read about it at Minecraft.net.
