Minecraft Legends on PC
The Minecraft IP is so ubiquitous at this level that it nearly feels prefer it’s too massive to fail. Initially billed as a sandbox-style recreation with surprisingly in-depth mining and constructing mechanics, Minecraft has since expanded its scope to embody numerous different genres, deepening its maintain on its viewers and the gaming world at massive. Minecraft Legends is the IP’s newest foray into yet one more new style, an experiment to see the way it fares within the RTS house.
Whereas real-time technique video games have by no means precisely been in my wheelhouse, Minecraft Legends introduced itself as a welcoming, accessible entry level into the style. Framed as a bedtime story about myths and folklore, Minecraft Legends is ready in a time earlier than the unique recreation, the place the Overworld is way more peaceable than you may bear in mind it. Villagers lived largely in peace, till these lovely little piglet enemies –aptly named Piglins– began exhibiting up and inflicting all kinds of hassle.
Minecraft Legends incorporates a story marketing campaign which you could take pleasure in solo or in co-op, in addition to a PvP mode the place you may interact in 4v4 battles as you attempt to reinforce your defenses whereas taking down the enemy base. Most of my time was spent within the marketing campaign through the evaluate interval, which did an incredible job of getting me acquainted with all of the core mechanics I wanted to be taught to succeed.
Your hero can swing a sword to manually assault enemies, however most of your time can be spent spawning numerous sorts of golems –wooden, stone, moss, simply to call just a few–and directing them to do a lot of the heavy-lifting for you. Wooden golems are nice for participating in direct fight with enemies, stone golems excel at destroying buildings, whereas the moss golems help your military by offering therapeutic to maintain everybody alive. You’ll unlock extra golem sorts as the sport progresses and also you achieve entry to much more assets, however for essentially the most half, you’ll all the time be summoning golems and making an attempt to direct them to take down enemies effectively.
Issues get a bit of extra advanced when you begin fortifying your individual base defenses as properly. Each time the Piglins assault, you’ll want to strengthen villages by constructing buildings like archery towers, partitions, ramps, and different fortifications to maintain the enemies out.
I ought to notice that Minecraft Legends will not be precisely a recreation that lends itself properly to solo play; throughout my time with the marketing campaign, I largely performed via it alone and rapidly discovered myself getting overwhelmed by simply how a lot there was to micromanage. You solely have a restricted time to arrange earlier than the Piglins arrive, and I all the time discovered myself struggling to get all of the partitions up, arrange towers, get my spawners able to summon my golem military, and get into place in order that I may begin choosing off the Piglins.
Not solely that, however issues begin to get fairly chaotic as soon as the preventing really begins. You’re always juggling what your golems are doing and keeping track of your defenses to ensure the Piglins don’t get via. Issues get further chaotic when the sport throws in an additional goal or two so that you can accomplish on prime of making an attempt to maintain your hero and golems alive. It additionally doesn’t assist that the controls aren’t all that easy even on PC; I’d discovered it to be a little bit of a problem having to micromanage my golems and slowly ship them into totally different instructions to cowl extra floor, whereas additionally making certain that I had the suitable golem sorts for the assorted targets I needed to perform.
All of that is to say, Minecraft Legends is infinitely higher with a good friend or two. I’d managed to hop right into a handful of multiplayer periods, and that is the place the sport actually shines. With the ability to cut up up the workload between a crew of 4 gamers makes every part really feel a lot extra environment friendly, and also you by no means really feel such as you’re overwhelmed with too many issues to handle. The bottom fortification course of additionally turns into way more intense, as you might have extra time to correctly plan and set your traps, creating much more fascinating challenges on your opponents to beat.
Minecraft Legends additionally shakes issues up with a day/evening cycle, the place Piglins turn out to be even deadlier as soon as the solar goes down. They begin showing in droves, and stronger Piglin sorts additionally begin spawning, forcing you to rethink your technique should you’re planning on exploring the Overworld at evening. I used to be initially apprehensive concerning the Piglins being the one enemies you’d combat within the recreation, however they’re so various in sort, and the variability in aims and totally different buildings you need to take down whereas attacking a base make it so that you just’re all the time encountering contemporary challenges.
I suppose I hoped that the marketing campaign can be higher suited to a solitary expertise, as I’ve usually gravitated in the direction of technique video games the place I used to be solely answerable for how properly or how poorly I did, based mostly on the choices I used to be making as an alternative of how properly I navigated the sport controls.
Total, Minecraft Legends is a straightforward, but efficient introduction to the RTS style for newcomers like myself. Whereas I don’t essentially see myself sinking a ton of time into the sport going ahead –primarily as a result of RTS video games nonetheless aren’t my factor– I do admire Mojang’s effort in increasing the Minecraft universe and experimenting with totally different genres to see how inventive they will get with the IP. Barely janky controls apart, Minecraft Legends is a stable journey to expertise with mates, and it’ll hold you occupied for hours on finish. Simply don’t go in anticipating a ton of single-player content material you may take pleasure in by yourself time.
Reviewer: Zhiqing Wan | Copy supplied by Writer.
Execs
- Enjoyable, accessible entry level into the RTS style.
- Multiplayer is de facto enjoyable.
- The Piglins make for excellent foes, and the missions all the time really feel sufficiently contemporary.
Cons
- Controls is usually a little wonky, particularly should you’re taking part in solo.
- Talking of “solo”, the sport solely actually shines when you have three different mates to play it with.
Launch Date
April 18, 2023
Developer
Mojang Studios, Blackbird Interactive
Writer
Xbox Sport Studios
Consoles
PS4, PS5, Xbox, Swap, PC
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