Minecraft Dungeons 2 Goes from Good Baby Diablo to Great Junior Diablo

Minecraft Dungeons, the 2020 dungeon-crawling spinoff of the world-conquering sandbox game, is an extremely simple and pretty effective riff on the Diablo-style action-RPG. Designed first and foremost for couch co-op, it worked as a gateway for Minecraft's vast, broad, and young audience into a new game genre by stripping that genre down to its barest essentials.

Building a sequel to a game like Minecraft Dungeons presents is a tricky balancing act. The rudimentary setup is crying out for new features and a deeper experience. But go too deep, and you risk muddling the purity and approachability that are the game's entire reason to exist.

Based on five or six hours' play in couch co-op with my 10- and 7-year-old kids, I would say that Minecraft Dungeons 2's co-developers, Mojang and Double Eleven, have nailed it. The game feels richer, more expansive, and more flexible, and it offers players more options, without overcomplicating things or getting in the way of the tactile joy of smacking mobs around in My First Action-RPG.

Minecraft Dungeons 2 offers more options while keeping the spirit of the first game

Image: Mojang/Double Eleven/Xbox Game Studios

Indeed, Minecraft Dungeons 2 feels so immediately familiar and comforting that it's surprising how much new stuff there is in there. But the key to the first game's simplicity remains: the complete lack of character classes. Instead, your character's abilities are defined by the loot you pick up and equip, with up to three Artifact items — which might add effects to your arrows, drop totems that buff you, or give you a variety of bombs to throw — filling the role of skills. In Minecraft Dungeons, everyone's got melee and ranged weapons, and opportunities for specialization and build-crafting are gently discovered and explored as you go.

There's only so much you can do with your character, which is very much the point. Dungeons 2 offers more options through new gear slots, with the single armor slot splitting into individual slots for head, chest, legs and feet, plus the new Talisman item type, which offers unique passive bonuses and can be leveled up.

Less exciting, but possibly more impactful in the long term, there's now a proper randomized loot table, with more variety in the power, rarity, and effects of item drops. There's a more flexible enchantment system, too, although I didn't get as far as exploring that. But I could immediately sense the changes in how much more fun the loot was to find and equip, and I could see the possibilities in finding synergies between the items.

Image: Mojang/Double Eleven/Xbox Game Studios

Immediacy and satisfaction are also the hallmarks of the combat, which is punchy and enjoyable, just the right side of chaotic. As simple as the game is, and as limited as your options are, Mojang and Double Eleven aren't afraid to turn up the dial in some pretty heated encounters to encourage players to actually collaborate and use the skills they have. New "soul-corrupted" enemies fill the role of Diablo's Elites, with big health pools and some devious mechanics that force you to work tactically rather than just wading in.

These soul-corrupted mobs originate from the Sift, the first new dimension to come to the Minecraft universe in 15 years. (Mojang just revealed that the Sift will be coming to Minecraft proper next year.) Accessed through lurid, trippy portals, the Sift is a cheerfully surreal realm populated by adorable musical golems and bizarre creatures, like cows with grass hides. Unfortunately, it's been discovered by some dastardly pillagers who seek to use its power for evil. You know what to do.

Where the first Dungeons was just a sequence of linear, level-like chapters, Dungeons 2 takes place on a sprawling world map populated with main quests, side quests, dungeons, and secrets. The openness enhances the sense of adventure and brings new sources of XP and loot, although shepherding your party through its three-dimensional twists and turns can be a challenge, even with the shocking addition of a jump button. Similarly, while the game always looks chunky and inviting, Minecraft's blocky art style doesn't always resolve that well with the isometric camera angle; busy combat situations get hard to parse when almost everything has the same silhouette.

Honestly, though, there's little to complain about here. New multiplayer options, which include online matchmaking and mixed online and local co-op, seal the deal. Minecraft Dungeons 2 has graduated from baby Diablo to junior Diablo with ease and grace. It's the perfect action-RPG for families, or for any group of friends who fancy a simple, but not mindless, bit of hack-and-slash.