5 Ways to Turn Minecraft Legends PvP Into a Whole New Action Strategy Game
Minecraft legends, the upcoming game from Mojang Studios and Blackbird Interactive, is “not your average strategy game,” according to chief design officer Craig Lee. Appearing on an Xbox podcast last week, Lee talked about several ways in which the new game (releases April 18 for Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, PC (Steam and Windows), Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 4|5) offers a very new twist. in the genre. “We run into this all the time,” he explained. “People say, ‘This is not the game I thought it was, this is an action game!’ and that’s what I like about it.”
When you mix genres, you need to come up with fresh ideas about how it will work, not least in Minecraft legendsA 4v4 PvP mode that was introduced during Developer_Direct last month. The developers came up with several ways to do this, and Li explained several PvP innovations in this new twist on the formula.
fast travel
Not something you necessarily associate with strategy games, Minecraft legends introduces a fast travel system to help players balance the various actions they will need to complete in order to defeat their enemies. While base building is a key part of the picture, players will also need to go outside, explore, gather resources, and attack enemies to win the round, meaning they will be offered an easy way home to keep their base safe.
“So if you are out of the world, you are far from your base and you hear that you are being attacked, you can move quickly,” Li explained. “So you can open the map, click on your base and say whistle, get back home really fast because we didn’t want the players to run around in a panic, ‘Oh, I can’t get home on time.’
Fast travel doesn’t just apply to playable characters. “If you’re at home too and you’re under attack, you can go to the spawn point and recall units, units that are in this world that might not be doing anything, you can quickly recall them back to your base,” Li added. “You don’t run around looking for them, ‘Where are those cobblestone golems?’, you can just pull them back to help you defend.”
PvPvE
It is clear that Minecraft legends players will have a lot to do during the rounds, but its NPCs are quite busy too – and may even suggest new ways for players to destroy their opponents’ base:
“I think people will be most surprised by the PvP in the game, but there is also a bit of PvE,” Lee said. “Pigs [the enemies in the game’s story-led campaign] are also in PvP and the Piglins do whatever the Piglins want. So the pigs attack both teams and during the battles there is a change of day and night, but the pigs attack more ferociously at night – so you time your strategy when the pigs attack at night and wait for them to break the walls. down and sneak? So you are dealing not only with another team, but also with piglins.
Ping system
With a shared pool of resources, multiple activities, and attacks on multiple fronts, communication plays a key role in Minecraft legends‘PvP. Luckily, the team has a great solution for this, beyond what is expected:
“We also have a ping system,” Li said. “It’s very important to work together because you’re sharing resources and so with a ping system you can say ‘I want to build a Redstone launcher’ and the team will say ‘OK, let’s save our Redstone.’ Or you can say, “I want coal!” and people say, “Okay, let’s save our coal.” You can use voice chat, which is great, but we also wanted to make sure there was a system where people could give basic commands because you are sharing resources.”
Game time
Experienced strategy players will get used to multiplayer matches that can take a very long time, battling through tight situations to earn a hard-earned victory. Minecraft legends wants to offer the same experience but in a more manageable time frame, allowing players to constantly start new games, with procedurally generated maps offering a new experience every time they play.
“We worked really hard, so the games are 20 to 30 minutes long,” Lee explained. “It depends on the strategy; if teams have a crazy strategy, they can win early if they catch a team by surprise, or if both teams decide “we’re going to build bastions with stone walls and massive towers”, then games can go on a little longer.
“But we worked very hard to balance the games in this way because we don’t want it to be a 14-day siege by Blue Team and so our longer games were about 30 minutes long. It’s old fashioned to think of, but we wanted players to play two games during their lunch break so they could play a couple of the games they played during lunch. “
Cross-platform
Strategy games are traditionally the property of the PC, but Minecraft legends released simultaneously on all major gaming platforms. In doing so, the team has worked to ensure that not only can you play with anyone on any platform, but that no one is at a disadvantage when playing on a particular machine.
“We thought it was really important, no matter what platform you are on, so that you can play together, we want as many players as possible to play together,” Lee explained.
“It doesn’t matter where you play, on launch day you will be able to play on any of these platforms in PvP mode, and the game works great on any platform. The way we designed it, the keyboard and mouse have no advantage over the controller, it’s not a first-person shooter or anything, so it was designed in a way that’s perfect for cross-platform play. We thought it was really important, so we designed it that way.”
And with a huge number of players across platforms and continents playing together, it just means there will be more twists and turns in PvP that even developers can’t foresee.
“I’m especially excited to see the crazy strategies people come up with in PvP,” Li finished. “Because we think we’ve done everything, and then someone will come along and just do something crazy that we didn’t think about. We all joke on the team that we’ll be good at PvP for about an hour and then the whole community will just crush us because they’ll come up with new strategies.”
Minecraft legends releases April 18 on Windows PC (Day 1 with PC Game Pass), Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One (Day 1 with Xbox Game Pass), Xbox Cloud Gaming, PlayStation, Steam, and Nintendo Switch.
Minecraft Legends – Windows
Xbox Game Studios
The corruption of the Pig Nether is spreading throughout the world, burning everything it touches. Are you the hero who will protect this gentle land? Plan your strategy and take on the Piglins in epic battles, but be careful, they always fight back. Capture piglin bases during the day and protect your allies after sunset. Explore lush biomes full of treasure and danger, meet new friends and reunite with familiar mobs. All that’s left to do is save the world. Experience an epic legend from the Minecraft and Outworld universe like you’ve never seen before. Forge alliances with new friends and familiar mobs, then lead the charge in epic battles against ferocious pigs to protect the Overworld. Travel through a lush, dynamic world that is rich in resources and different in every playthrough. Challenge your friends or team up in intense battles to defend your village and lead your squads to destroy your opponents’ settlements.
