Who better to make a true rival to the behemoth that is Minecraft than the developer that created it in the first place? For a short while, this seemed like a genuine possibility, as Markus ‘Notch’ Persson pitched the idea of making his own ‘Minecraft 2’ sandbox game. However, it now seems like that dream is over already, as the developer has revealed he’s going to pursue a roguelike passion project instead.
For the unaware, Notch was the original architect of Minecraft, and at the turn of the New Year he gave his large social media following the choice of what his new game should be – a first-person, tile-based roguelike or a spiritual successor to the iconic sandbox game he created. Despite votes being overwhelmingly in favor of Minecraft 2, Notch has now revealed that he will be developing his roguelike game Levers and Chests instead.
When musing over which game to make last week, Notch said that while he didn’t “super duper care” which of the two projects he took on, he would “absolutely be willing to give it [a Minecraft spiritual successor] an honest shot.” However, after posting a poll, Notch did beg his followers to vote for his roguelike dungeon crawler idea. Despite his pleas, the community has leaned overwhelmingly towards the Minecraft rival – at the time of writing, it has 81% of the votes.
It seems, though, that democracy is dead. Sorry, Minecraft fans. In a new post on X, Notch says: “Talked to the fellas at the office. Looks like we’re making Levers and Chests!”
In one of his many replies to fans (both disappointed and excited ones) he says more specifically that Levers and Chests will be “a turn based old school roguelike, presented in the format of an old school first person party based dungeon crawler.”
When asked why he went against the grain of the vote and decided not to make a new Minecraft rival, Notch says: “Trust me, the spiritual successor would be way less fun than the dungeon roguelike. They’re always kinda sad nostalgia dumps.”
I can imagine some of you long-time Minecraft fans out there may be suffering from a fair bit of emotional whiplash right now. A challenger to one of the biggest and best PC games of all time, made by its original creator? That’s a delicious prospect that’s sadly been served up and binned within the space of a week. Nevertheless, you can keep on building in Mojang’s behemoth – be sure to check out our best Minecraft seeds guide before you head back in.
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