Minecraft creator Markus “Notch” Persson has seemingly revealed plans for a spiritual successor to Minecraft, with development work set to begin this year. In response to a question on X, Persson said he had “basically announced Minecraft 2” and was giving “an honest shot” at creating a worthy successor to his most popular creation.
“I thought that maybe people ACTUALLY do want me to make another game that’s super similar to the first one, and I’m loving working on games again,” Persson said. “My intentions are to be clear and honest about it, saying that spiritual successors are usually kind of… you know… washed up. Tragic. The things I’m fearing my next game is going to be anyway and try to push myself to avoid. So why not do the thing that people DO want and are willing to give me, somehow, even MORE cash for.”
Based on Persson’s post, it does appear funds have been secured for the project, and that work may already be underway.
What’s worth mentioning is that Persson’s next game can’t be a literal Minecraft 2, as the rights to the game now belong to Mojang and Microsoft – but Persson has made this clear in his announcement, confirming he won’t try to make an actual sequel that “sneakily infringe[s]” on the “incredible work the Mojang team is doing” and that “Microsoft is successfully doing the Microsoft shittification about.”
“I respect them for doing that. It’s their job. And they, from what I understand, let the studio do things their way, which seems very fair to me.”
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Of relevance is that since leaving Mojang, Persson has announced an array of projects and concepts which have not progressed significantly. In 2014, he established a studio known as Rubberbrain, but this seemingly didn’t produce any games over a ten-year period.
In early 2024, Persson announced another studio known as Bitshift Entertainment. At the time, he shared plans to create “a roguelike combined with a first person dungeon crawler” with the working title Levers and Chests. It’s unclear if this game became the so-called “Minecraft 2” or whether it’s a completely separate title.
In any case, use of the phrase “Minecraft 2” is likely to spark attention from keen players, as well as Mojang and Microsoft. In the years since creating Minecraft, Persson has largely been disassociated from the title due to his expression of anti-feminist and anti-LGBTQ+ views online. These views led to Microsoft removing mention of his name from Minecraft‘s menus, and since then, Mojang, as an entity, has been considered the developer of the title.
Should Persson’s latest project progress, it’s likely it will need to drop the “Minecraft 2” moniker, although we’ll have to wait to see what eventuates from current plans.
