Minecraft Dungeons II wants to grow up, just like its players

When George reviewed the original Minecraft Dungeons back in 2020, he ultimately came away happy with the experience - though a bit disappointed in terms of the game's difficulty and scope as an RPG. Earlier this week alongside Summer Game Fest, we had the opportunity to get an early look at exactly how Minecraft Dungeons II is shaping up. While we won't be able to speak to the full breadth of the game's systems off of a single short demo - there's a real chance that this follow-up might be exactly what the series needs to deliver on that initial promise.

The core of the game's changes revolve around three main areas, as far as we could surmise from our demo session. A stronger focus on gear customization, a greater focus on exploration thanks to increased traversal and an interconnected world, and a focus on "aging up" the game's difficulty alongside those who had originally played the first Minecraft Dungeons as kids, and might be approaching their teens now.

As far as gear is concerned, these changes primarily come down to expanding your options for buildcraft. Unlike with the first game, armor is split into multiple pieces - each with their own stats - and potentially their own Unique perks, depending on the gear you've equipped. Just as in regular Minecraft, you can equip armor to your head, body, legs, and shoes - adding significantly more room for customization than previously available, in addition to the returning Artifact system.

Exploration, to that end, is also expanded. Players now have the ability to jump, which can change how levels are design to accommodate more verticality - but even more than that, Dungeons II features an interconnected world instead of the segments missions of the original. While the team at Mojang wanted to stress that this isn't an "open world", they also wanted to focus on the fact that Dungeons II should feel more like an actual place, now that everywhere has a physical connection to each other.

During a pre-demo presentation, as well as a short Q&A, the team elaborated that these changes were the result of two things - one, what the team had learned from their first experience working on Minecraft Dungeons, but also an acknowledgement that last time around they felt the need to be careful with setting expectations for the game, especially for younger players. This time, they don't feel the same constraints. Many kids that played the original are now teens, and the expectation has been thoroughly set - and with that, the chance to ratchet up the difficulty and complexity of the game to better suit a more experienced playerbase.

On that note, you can certainly feel that shift in action. While the game isn't as demanding as a Diablo, enemies brought some teeth to bare - especially the final boss of our demo session. That's not to say that the game is only focusing on increasing the difficulty, but there's a feeling that the game is both more confident in what made the original work, and what needed to be improved. 

Some examples include itemization, and grappling with inventory management during multiplayer. Every player is now assigned color-coded loot, and can manage their own inventories with a small pop-up menu rather than necessitating a complete pause whenever one player needed to swap out gear. This was especially noticeable during our demo session, where 4 members of the press were thrown into a local co-op session on the same system. 

As far as the game itself, I feel confident in speaking to its quality - assuming it scales up well from the demo, of course. However, I do feel that much of what we had to say about Xbox's own Outer Worlds 2 last year remains the same, particularly when it comes to the prickly topic of the BDS (Boycott, Divest and Sanction) list. Microsoft still remains accused of being actively complicit in what a UN commision has declared a genocide. None of the specific developers under Microsoft's umbrella are to blame, but it's worth noting for those whom this might be a concern about where their money is ultimately being spent.

Minecraft Dungeons II feels to be a rather solid improvement, and I have little doubt that the final release will be a great game. Regardless, we'll have to see how the full game shapes up when it launches on September 29 for Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch, Nintendo Switch 2, and PC (Xbox, Steam).