The main game is quite broad in terms of the experiences that players can have with it, so for the project that became Dungeons, Mojang wanted something more specific. Instead it started from the Mojang team wondering where else Minecraft could potentially go. Olson is leading the team, but he contends that the project was never the work of one individual. Then there's a couple folks in Redmond, and we have some quality assurance in the U.K. 'We're approaching 20 to 25 now, maybe something like that. 'In the Stockholm office, we were about seven people when we started,' says Minecraft Dungeons game director Måns Olson. It's primarily the work of Mojang's Stockholm team, with British developer Double Eleven helping with multiplayer and console ports, and a QA team. Minecraft Dungeons is the work of a small team within Mojang dedicated to crafting something new for the franchise.

Welcome to a more focused, combat heavy spin on Minecraft. Hell, it's one of the biggest games releasing this month. In contrast, Minecraft Dungeons is one of Xbox Game Studios' key titles this year. It's very possible that you've never heard of Mojang's other games, like Caller's Bane (formerly Scrolls), or Crown and Council. It doubles as one of the biggest projects to come from Mojang outside of Minecraft. You can dive into a Creeper and Zombie killing frenzy alone, or with up to four players. Minecraft Dungeons takes the familiar Minecraft aesthetic and applies it to an overhead dungeon-crawler, like a more family-friendly version of Blizzard Entertainment's Diablo series. That's changing this year, as Mojang is preparing to release the first proper spinoff developed by the Minecraft studio: Minecraft Dungeons. With 176 million copies sold worldwide, you'd think Minecraft would be a booming extended franchise by now. Minecraft: Story Mode was developed and published by Telltale Games, and Minecraft Earth, a mobile-focused augmented reality game, is still in early access.

Nine years after its original full release, Minecraft has had few releases outside of the primary game. Mojang and parent company Microsoft are only beginning to scratch the surface of what Minecraft could become.

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