Minecraft Dungeons has enjoyed a long and prosperous journey since its initial release nearly a year and a half ago, and now it's about to embark on the next chapter of its adventure. Today, Minecraft Dungeons Ultimate Edition becomes available to an all-new pool of players on Steam that have possibly not experienced what this unique action-RPG has to offer. This is the perfect debut for Mojang Studios' newest project on Steam since it includes the base game and all previously released DLC. To mark the occasion, I got to speak with Executive Producer David Nisshagen and Game Director Måns Olson. We discussed how Minecraft Dungeons had reached this point, what it took to release the game on Steam, and a tiny hint for what's to come for the game.
With the release of the Echoing Void DLC, Minecraft Dungeons officially concluded the story that followed the Arch-Illager and the Orb of Dominance. When Minecraft Dungeons initially released, the general consensus was that it had a wonderful foundation, but was a little light on content (most notably in the endgame). Mojang Studios isn't known for leaving a game alone, however, and released a multitude of updates and paid DLC expansions for its title in the months following launch, including over a dozen updates, featuring six premium expansions, which means Minecraft Dungeons is a significantly larger game than it was at launch. I've already explored in-depth why I believe Minecraft is the greatest game ever made, and Minecraft Dungeons was certainly a part of that discussion, especially when it comes to Xbox games.
"We had a lot of plans for things that we'd like to get out... especially bringing more content to players," said Olson. "So with all the DLCs, we've released free content that we think does a good job of complementing the base game experience." Devotion to Minecraft Dungeons has led to over 10 million unique players. It wasn't all set in stone from the beginning, however, with Nisshagen adding, "Many of these things from our perspective I won't say were experimental, but they were things that we liked to try. We don't have any master plan. We're trying things that we think are fun and cool. And it also seems to be quite appreciated by the players, right? So having that sort of lightweight approach, trying things, has been a really lovely journey."
Many community-requested features and changes, like cross-play and cross-save support, were added to Minecraft Dungeons after release. There were also meaningful content additions to Minecraft Dungeons' endgame, like the exciting Ancient Hunts, brand-new secret levels, new gear and enchantments, and much more. These were all released for free, while new story content was explored in larger paid expansions. This devotion to the game has led to Minecraft Dungeons accumulating over 10 million unique players on all of its platforms. Olson and Nisshagen confirmed that the number of players is indeed higher now, but they elected not to reveal the exact number. With Minecraft Dungeons' last DLC concluding its current story, however, and the Ultimate Edition bundling all Minecraft Dungeons content into one comprehensive bundle, many players are left wondering what's coming next. When I asked about exactly this, Olson said, "We aren't ready to talk about all of our future plans. As you might have guessed, there's more forthcoming in the not-too-distant future. We definitely want to keep updating the game, and we're not done with Minecraft Dungeons in any way. We are done with the story of the Arch-Illager and the DLCs that relate to that, but we have exciting plans, I think, for what's coming next." "Steam is a very interesting platform in that it's a very big one," Nisshagen said. "It's especially big in Sweden, or in Scandanavia, so it's almost seen as a little bit of the natural state. A game should be on Steam, so we're super happy to be able to bring Dungeons there."
Minecraft Dungeons, of course, was already available on PC through the Microsoft Store and Mojang Studios' own launcher, which can also be used to play Minecraft: Java Edition. However, a huge number of PC gamers practically play exclusively through Steam, which is by far the largest singular platform for purchasing and playing PC games in many parts of the world. Minecraft Dungeons is the latest Microsoft game to arrive on Steam, alongside titles like Halo: The Master Chief Collection, meaning the game is about to be exposed to a brand-new pool of potential players.
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