Minecraft Legends review

Minecraft Legends arrives on Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, and Windows and joins Xbox Game Pass on April 18th. Here are our thoughts on Mojang Studio's latest Minecraft spin-off.

I’ll be the first to admit that Minecraft Legends never really grabbed my attention when it was announced. I’m not a big strategy head, and I couldn’t quite figure out who an action-strategy game set in the world of Minecraft might be for, but after playing through the game’s campaign and competing in online PvP, I was left pleasantly surprised. Minecraft Legends isn’t the deepest strategy game in the world, but I found it somewhat compelling, and it certainly didn’t outstay its welcome.

In Minecraft Legends’ campaign (which can be played in co-op for up to four players), the Piglins have emerged from the Nether and are running rampant across the Overworld, destroying villages and locking up Villagers and other mobs. The Hosts (the Overworld’s caretakers) task you with putting an end to the Piglin invasion. To do this, you’ll need to create and command an army, unite the various mobs around the world, and bring down Piglin outposts and fortresses, ending the Piglins once and for all.

After the campaign’s brief tutorial, you are let loose into Minecraft Legends’ procedurally-generated Overworld that looks fantastic with its familiar blocky landscapes and vibrant colours. Armed with a sword, a lute that you play to give orders, and a trusty steed, it’s now up to you to put down the Piglin invasion however you see fit. The first job is collecting resources you’ll need to build your army — thankfully, you won’t be punching any trees in Minecraft Legends. Gathering resources is as simple as ordering an Allay to collect them for you, whether that's wood and stone in the campaign's early stages or diamond and redstone towards the end. The Overworld is split into different biomes, with each featuring a unique resource. This forces you to explore different areas, but sadly, the world does feel a bit repetitive after a while, and outside of a few upgrades and secrets, there isn’t that much incentive to clamber over the top of that mountain range to see what’s on the other side.

Once laden with resources, it’s time to bring the fight to the Piglins by attacking bases and defending villages. On the map, you’ll find different Piglin outposts, villages, and other secrets. How you tackle the outposts is completely up to you, but you’ll need to be aware that the Piglins don’t just hole up in their bases. Most nights, the Piglins will either build a new outpost, fortify one, or prepare to attack a village, meaning you will always have a bit of pressure on you to stop the enemy from expanding. Attacking a base is also left open to you, with the goal of bringing down the Nether Portal in the centre. Do you weaken Piglin defences by building a Redstone Launcher to create gaps in enemy fortifications? Perhaps you take several units of Creepers to blow up the Piglin’s arrow towers or the Carpenter Hut that is repairing structures around it? There are a fair amount of strategic options here if you’re willing to engage with them, but personally, I ended up utilising the same tactics for most strongholds in the game, which was bringing down a few defensive towers, carving a route to the portal, and overwhelming that with mobs. Controlling your little army of mobs, which does start off small, but eventually grows after spending resources, was a pretty simple affair. Thankfully, Mojang has done an excellent job with the controls here and allows you to direct different types of mobs (ranged, melee, special, and legendary) with ease, giving a greater variety of control and strategy.

The building controls are slightly more finicky, however. During my playthrough, several Piglin fortresses had been built on pillared islands, which required me to build ramps to access them. This was an absolute pain as I was constantly being told I couldn’t build a ramp here or I couldn’t build one there, and when you’re trying to lead an offensive, having your mobs standing still and getting bombarded with arrows and bombs while I was fiddling with the ramp controls was not ideal. The mob AI is also pretty all over the place. I’d constantly find mobs just standing around not doing anything, or find a few Skeletons or Arrow Golems that had fallen off the side of a cliff, unable to progress with the attack.

The Piglins and their bases are split into three different hordes, each with unique traits and attacks. For example, the Horde of the Hunt is quick moving and will try to rush you when you attack, but for all three, I didn’t really feel forced to change from my original strategy, which was a bit of a shame. After you upset the Piglin hordes enough, they’ll begin sending out bosses into the Overworld. This is where some variety in gameplay was welcome, and my tactics for attacking and defending were forced to change slightly. I had a lot of fun using the Cure Netherrack upgrade later in the game, which allowed me to reclaim parts of Piglin territory when attacking a stronghold, giving me the option to set up my own outposts in their base.

Defending villages broke up the offensive gameplay nicely, to begin with, and I quite enjoyed having to sit back and plan out my defences. Each village defence requires you to hold out against a Piglin attack for a set amount of time, and it’s worth defending them as villages act as useful fast travel points. While, again, there wasn’t that much deep strategy involved here other than throwing up a few walls and simple arrow towers, defending is still a fun experience.

Overall, the campaign’s core loop of gathering resources, defending a village, attacking a Piglin stronghold, and upgrading your abilities and structures is a fairly simple one, and it doesn't really change. Towards the end of my 12 hours with the campaign, things were on the verge of getting a bit stale, but luckily it didn’t outstay its welcome.

PvP is where I think the real focus of the game is. In Versus mode the objective is simple: on procedurally generated maps, destroy the enemy base while protecting your own. In public matchmaking, Versus mode is limited to 4v4 (this drops down to 3v3 if there aren’t enough players), but in private matches, you can play from either 1v1 up to 4v4. PvP follows the same principles as the campaign: gather resources, build your defences, and attack the enemy base. To do this, you’ll need to communicate with your team and organise who is doing what, but doing this is easier said than done Minecraft Legends lacks an in-game voice chat, so communicating with random players is a challenge. There is a ping system, but it’s not the most versatile, and it can be pretty tough to get everyone on the same page when your base is getting attacked from three different directions and mobs are spilling in through walls. Ideally, you’ll want to get into a party chart with who you’re playing with and play that way.

When everyone is working together, Versus mode is frantic and silly fun, with matches lasting for a good 20 or 30 minutes. There is a constant to and fro from attack to defence, and you’re always kept on your toes thanks to not only other players but AI-controlled Piglins that will attack your base. This adds a nice bit of PvPvE to the mix, which is always a plus.

Aside from the lack of in-game voice chat, the only other concern I have with Minecraft Legends’ PvP is to do with longevity. I don’t know if there is enough here to keep players interested and have them come back. In my time with PvP, each team was racing to build the overpowered Redstone Launcher, and as soon as that was built it was game over. I think after a while, players will need a bit more variety in the game to keep things from getting stale.

To keep players coming back, Minecraft Legends does have another mode that could keep things interesting. Lost Legends is a mode where each month, Mojang will add a new adventure for players to complete to earn new skins. The one I had access to was called The Portal Pile, which was basically a horde mode and asked me to survive and protect my base against 20 waves of enemies. This has been designed for co-op play, and on my own, while fun, I didn’t stand a chance.

As for the Minecraft Legends achievements, I earned 520G from the campaign alone, and that was without being able to see the list as it wasn't live during my playthrough. The only achievements I can see being a pain are for completing the campaign on Legendary (Legendary Hero) and defeating an opponent with less than 10% of your HQ's health remaining in Versus (Nailbiter). The rest should be a breeze.

Summary

Overall, Minecraft Legends is a fun and compelling action-strategy game that is well worth checking out. While it does have issues with finicky building controls, wonky mob AI, and a lack of depth for the big strategy heads out there, more casual players will enjoy this one. The campaign doesn’t overstay its welcome, and PvP is a riot with other players, provided you’re in a party chat. If you have kids who are interested in Minecraft, Minecraft Legends is a no-brainer and a great way to introduce them to a new genre.

* Sean played around 15 hours of Minecraft Legends on Xbox Series X|S, unlocking 17 achievements in the process. A key for the game was provided by Microsoft for this review.

More Minecraft Legends stories:

Written by Sean Carey

With a deep love for Xbox and achievements, Sean has committed to playing the best RPGs, racing games, and first-person shooters Xbox Game Pass and his precious free time will allow. Prior to joining TrueAchievements, Sean gained a degree in journalism from Solent University.