Minecraft Legends review: Making Piglins fly

It’s weird to say this after growing up with Nintendo, but Minecraft is now one of, if not the most recognisable brands in gaming. In Microsoft’s current pantheon of iconic characters, Steve is just as easy to spot as Master Chief, Marcus Fenix, or, uh, a car from Forza.

Naturally, as popular as it is, Minecraft can’t stay still, and what was once solely a digital LEGO set mixed with survival has become a dungeon crawler, a Smash Bros crossover and now an action-strategy title with Minecraft Legends.

While lacking in fresh new ideas, it’s a fun trip into Mojang’s blocky world from a new perspective, even if things aren’t always as exciting as they could be.

Shines bright like a diamond

Where Minecraft Legends absolutely excels is in its commitment to Minecraft’s unique (and in its own way spectacular) visuals. In relation to the mainline title, it does a great job of sticking within the familiar aesthetic while dialling things up to eleven.

Environmental elements like bushes and spikes fit right in, while the smaller details like light bouncing off of flowers bring it all together nicely.

The night is filled with fury and destruction as the Piglins grow angrier and move in larger numbers, but it also brings out its own palette with which to paint the world.

Aside from exploring the world, I found myself surprisingly engrossed in Minecraft Legends’ cutscenes. I’m usually a player that often skips the filler cinematics, but in Minecraft Legends’ case, the game's opening cinematic sets the scene for what is to come in all its Piglin fury.

Defeating a Piglin base rewards players with the fury of the Nether, throwing enemies into lava and much more. It’s a nice flourish of personality to cap off major encounters.

We noobs need help

Minecraft Legends is, as you may expect from a franchise built on collaboration, primarily meant to be played in multiplayer.

As much as I loved exploring while playing solo, dipping into a variety of side quests, there’s a distinct lack of signposting that can make wandering the realm feel a little more frustrating. That’s not to say those same issues don’t persist in co-op, but they’re alleviated somewhat by the same things that have held Minecraft play sessions together for years - just being a great place to chat.

More than once I found myself struggling to find the next objective, instead finding areas too tough to tackle, or Piglin bases I wasn’t prepared for. These are challenges I came to relish when playing with others, but playing alone made Minecraft Legends’ pacing feel glacial at times, exacerbated by a lack of a traditional quest log or hint system.

Minecraft Legends has, very conveniently, allowed for an easy way to gather help during battle. The addition of cross-platform co-op is not only limited to new saves, but existing ones too. That means drop-in, drop-out co-op is available at any point.

Working with friends also lets each player show off their own unique style with a variety of outfits, but these sadly don’t affect your abilities or stats. That means roles are defined by what you choose to achieve in a battle - will you focus on building, or lead the charge? The choice is yours, but Minecraft Legends is a great time when shooting the breeze with a friend and whacking mobs.

A one-dimensional sword

Minecraft Legends’ world is full of bases to conquer, villages for the series’ iconic mobs, and plenty more, but your main way of interacting with it all is, as you may have guessed, combat.

What at first feels novel, however, is spread too thin across fairly repetitive encounters with Piglins and more.

Players curate their own force, constructed from mobs and units, while summoning Creepers, Zombies, and Skeletons, too. Recruitment is swift, and it never feels like a grind to add a whole host of critters and creatures to your ranks.

You can swap your mount, too, with a faster option like the Regal Tiger able to move more quickly through the overworld.

The battles though, while ranging in difficulty and length, feel the same throughout. You’ll destroy some defences, slay some Piglins, shatter a portal, and then do the same over again with minor variations. Some battles drop the Piglin base entirely, meaning you just churn through Nether mobs.

With combat the main focus, a lack of variety means that leaning so heavily on the swinging of your pixellated sword is risky - although again, co-op is the silver lining here.

Slay together, stay together

If you’re less interested in sticking together and more interested in PvP, Minecraft Legends has modes to cater to you. With 2v2, 3v3 and 4v4 modes, the competitive modes smartly lean on Minecraft’s history of construction with base building and sieges.

Both teams start from scratch, gather resources, and then attempt to build a base and defend it from the opposition. There are layers of depth here, with rush strategies like focusing on an early attack just as viable as playing the long game to earn Redstone Launchers. Whether it’s got the balance required to form the basis of something competitive is hard to say, but it’s certainly full of potential for a fanbase brimming with creativity.

At present, though, there’s a lack of in-game chat. It’s not a dealbreaker if you’re playing within a party, and may come after launch, but it’s worth mentioning.

The Verdict

Nothing in Minecraft Legends is entirely unique, and its most memorable aspects are its commitment to the series’ art direction and its PvP matches.

Between the two, there’s a formulaic campaign that feels like a fun social space in co-op but lacking in variety and direction when played solo. It’s Minecraft, but not as you know it - for better and worse.

3/5

Reviewed on PC. Code provided by the publisher.