I have a confession. I don’t get Minecraft. There.. it’s out in the open. Everyone knows I don’t like nor do I play Minecraft. I’ve watched people and my oldest daughter play but I can’t watch it for more than 5 minutes. It’s mindless mucking about building, crafting your world. It just doesn’t work for me but… When they revealed Minecraft Dungeons – I took immediate notice and wanted to jump in with both feet. And why is that? The answer is simple… Diablo.

Diablo, to me, is the crown jewel in Blizzard Entertainments accomplishments so to see a new game that follows the same sort of formula, it immediately became a must have.

Minecraft Dungeons is a dungeon crawler complete with enemies, copious amounts of loot to grind out and find, secret dungeons and a whole lot of fun packed into a small package. The best part about Minecraft Dungeons for me is the co-operative experience. Being able to play with up to 3 of your friends locally or via the internet is without a shadow of doubt a huge win with me. It’s also quite a simple game to get into for anyone who doesn’t have any experience with this style of game. I played with my 10yr old daughter who typically only plays things like The Sims, Fortnite and Minecraft and she was able to get right into it. Within minutes she was playing like an old pro. She even taught her cousin how to play over a party chat.

Interestingly, a huge difference change from the typical dungeon crawler, there are no character classes to choose from. You simply pick a base skin and go. Each player has a the ability to use a ranged attack with a bow or a close quarters attack using a variety of bladed weapons, maces etc. With each level upgrade users can apply points to their items in an effort to make them more powerful. Furthermore you can add artifacts which basically act like your spells. I had a llama who would join the frackus and attack enemies using ranged attacks.

Minecraft Dungeons is spread out across 9 realms, with varying difficulties and more powerful loot is what gives the game such a great replay value. The story is just sorta there. The Arch Illager wants to take over the world blah blah blah. Nothing particularly engrossing but I’m not sure it’s really necessary to be honest. I was fine skipping the cut scenes which isn’t exactly something I do often.

All in all I think Minecraft Dungeons was a fantastic first outing for the franchise. I’ve been playing a lot and can see myself playing a considerable amount more as we move to new releases and the hardware later this year.

Minecraft Dungeons releases on May 28th for Nintendo Switch, PC, PS4 and Xbox One.