14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft has no plans to launch a sequel to Minecraft, according to a recent statement of a company executive, and the firm right now just wants to focus on supporting the community and rolling out expansions.
Minecraft currently has more than 100 million monthly players, and more than 150 million copies of the game have been sold across the world, so many are wondering whether it’s the time for a Minecraft 2 to launch.
Microsoft, which purchased Minecraft last year for $2.5 billion, says such a thing doesn’t make sense from a community perspective, as it would only impact existing players.
“I really don’t think that makes sense for ‘Minecraft,’ given the community. It’s something that always fractures the community,” Microsoft's head for Minecraft, Helen Chiang, told BI recently.
More expansions coming
Living proof that Microsoft is going for an approach entirely based on expansions and ruling out sequels is the recent release of Minecraft: Dungeons.
As compared to the original game, Dungeons doesn’t put the focus on building, a thing that in the world of Minecraft seemed impossible.
“The way that we’ve decided to expand – and I think ‘Dungeons’ is the first example of that – is a way that we’re trying to keep our community together,” Chiang was quoted as saying.
“That’s why our updates our free. We don’t want to ask [players] to move from ‘Minecraft 1’ to ‘Minecraft 2.’ We want them to just enjoy ‘Minecraft.’ And there’s other ways that we can expand that are more meaningful and authentic to what we want to be, rather than just releasing another iteration in the way that most other franchises do.”
In other words, while Minecraft 2 won’t see daylight, at least not in the coming years, more expansions would certainly get the go-ahead, though for the time being, guessing the launch date is pretty impossible. However, Minecraft selling so well after so many years is a strong indication that Microsoft may be making the right call here.