Minecraft Legends Review: Minecraft Meets Strategy

Minecraft Legends might share the blocky style of the original Minecraft, but this isn’t a sandbox survival crafting game. This is a strategy game with tower defense elements and a PvP mode that’ll keep you playing even after you’ve finished the campaign.

Minecraft Legends begins with you, the hero, being summoned by Knowledge, Action, and Foresight. They request your help to save the Overworld, a land where the inhabitants are peaceful and don’t know how to fight. And it’s being attacked by Piglins.

Before they send you off, Knowledge, Action, and Foresight prepare you with a lute that can lead your army and command Allays, and the Flames of Creation, along with a tutorial on how to use these new tools that you’ll need to fight the Piglins and save the Overworld.

The initial guide ends after you learn the basic controls, and you’re officially sent out to do hero things. However, the tutorial doesn’t end there, and you’ll continue to receive informative pop-ups and guidance from Knowledge, Action, and Foresight.

Your overall tasks are to keep the villages of this world safe, show the inhabitants of the Overworld how to fight, and eliminate the Piglins. As you progress through the campaign, you’re able to upgrade your abilities, which is necessary to attack and overtake the stronger Piglin bases.

The campaign is straightforward in nature, if a bit short, but the pace is fast enough to keep you engaged as you travel from villages to Piglin outposts and then wander around to explore the map to gather resources and search for chests. This makes it easy to get sucked into your role as the hero.

Add to that the simplicity that adds to its charm — and the clarity of your tasks — and Minecraft Legends can be a somewhat relaxing experience outside of battles against the Piglin threat. 

The campaign features scenic cutscenes with the iconic block style of Minecraft, and the soundtrack, both in cutscenes and during gameplay, accents the content without demanding attention and taking away from what you’re doing.

The day and night cycle gives you plenty of time to prepare ahead of Piglins targeting a village, and you’re warned which village is being targeted, so you have time to prepare defenses.

Image via Microsoft

Minecraft Legends features two game modes aside from the campaign: PvP and Myths & Legends.

The Player versus Players mode pits eight players against each other in teams of four, but you can set up private matches to play with fewer than eight players if you’re crew is a bit smaller. These matches can last up to an hour as you gather resources, build your defenses, and prepare offenses to attack the opposing team.

Currently, PvP is the aspect of Minecraft Legends that offers the most replayability. While the Redstone Launcher is highly valuable, using it isn’t your only option for winning. Plus, having new teammates and facing different opponents means that no match will feel the same.

While some forms of PvP can feel stressful or put a lot of pressure on you to do well, the environment in Minecraft Legends feels more relaxed and playful.

The third mode is Myths & Legends. Myths and Legends are available on the Marketplace, but there’s currently only one available, and it’s free. These are extra stories that will be added periodically, and it’s a nice way to add more story to Minecraft Legends, considering that the campaign alone is quick to complete.

While the single available Legend on the Marketplace is free, it isn’t clear that all future ones will be free. Minecraft Legends does say that it contains in-app purchases, and those are seen with cosmetic additions such as skins, and while it would be great if future Myths and Legends are also free, that might not be the case.

However, Myths & Legends, pricing aside, could keep you returning to the game as new ones are added, and it could also act as your incentive to purchase the game in the future once more content is available.

Minecraft Legends Review — The Bottom Line

Image via Microsoft

Pros

• Simple and engaging story.
• Future content with Myths & Legends.
• Ability to play campaign and PVP with friends.
• Cross-platform.

Cons

• Short campaign.
• Uncertainty over future content pricing.

Minecraft Legends takes the familiar blocky style of Minecraft and puts a focus on strategy and action instead of building. You’ll use premade buildings and structures for protection instead of building your own bases from scratch.

Overall, it’s a delightful game that makes you feel like a hero with clear goals. My biggest question is how Myths & Legends will be treated going forward and if all additions to this mode will be free, or if we’ll start to see price tags on them. But if you’re a fan of Minecraft and strategy games, this is worth a peek. 

[Note: Microsoft provided the copy of Minecraft Legends used for this review. Featured Image via Microsoft.]