Image & Form Games has announced the first direct sequel in its highly-acclaimed SteamWorld series, SteamWorld Dig 2, which will release first on the Nintendo Switch.
Unlike previous entries in the series, each of which has fallen into a different genre, SteamWorld Dig 2 will revisit the core gameplay of its predecessor as a platformer-based action-adventure game. A key difference, however, is that the first Dig‘s levels utilised a procedural generation system, whereas in Dig 2 every level has been hand-built. This new approach ensures that the Metroidvania trappings of the game are utilised more effectively than before.
SteamWorld Dig 2 sees Rusty, the player character from the first Dig, step away from the limelight. In his place Dorothy, a shopkeeper from the original game, takes the role as protagonist—accompanied by an as-yet-unconfirmed companion character. The change is less dramatic than it may seem, as Dorothy retains many of the same abilities as Rusty. Additionally, she can gain even more skills as the game progresses.
The game also will adopt a new setting, moving away from Tumbleton to the new town of El Machino, though how this will affect the story and gameplay has not yet been announced.
The SteamWorld series began in 2010, and Dig 2 will be its fourth release. OnlySP’s Gareth Newnham reviewed the previous game, SteamWorld Heist, scoring it 8/10 and saying, “[w]ith a deep and nuanced combat system and a sliding difficulty scale to satisfy pretty much everyone, it’s another fine entry into the SteamWorld series.”
Although SteamWorld Dig 2 is currently being billed as Switch exclusive, previous games in the series have enjoyed staggered releases across multiple platforms. A similar launch schedule should be expected from this latest entry, with other platforms receiving it at a later date.
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We call Minecraft today’s Super Mario because the level of excitement and engagement this game has is just like Super Mario. Based on the cultural formula, the game is not just a game but an educational tool. Too much of our excitement, the sale milestone has just crossed 121 million copies!
From 121 million sold copies, every month 55 million people play this game on average. This is the first official sales and engagement update since June when Microsoft confirmed 100 million sales and 40 million unique monthly players.
Minecraft – 121 million copies sold
Back in the year 2014, Minecraft was taken over by Microsoft for just $2.5 billion. At the time of the deal, Persson mention in the news that “It’s not about the money. It’s about my sanity.”
Minecraft is available on PC and all major consoles, as well as smartphones. Looking ahead, Minecraft and Minecraft: Story Mode is headed to Nintendo Switch. In 2014, Xbox boss Phil Spencer addressed the possibility of developing a Minecraft sequel.
I don’t know if Minecraft 2 if that’s the thing that makes the most sense,
he said at the time.
The community around Minecraft is as strong as any community out there. We need to meet the needs and the desires of what the community has before we get permission to go off and do something else.
A few months ago Minecraft was in the news for its update on Windows Phone on which Marsh Davies spoke to a newspaper, saying that
We stopped shipping Minecraft updates for Windows Phone 8 back in October last year, Of course, players can still carry on building and explore their worlds as they always have, but, to get access to the newest Minecraft goodies, DLC, and other fun stuff, you’ll have to upgrade to the Windows 10 Mobile version of the game.
Let’s be honest, most games we play are fun for a few weeks. We’ll try the campaign, give multiplayer a go, then become tired with the game and move on to the next in line. Sure, some popular older titles get a rebirth via smartphones (Super Mario Run, Pokémon Go), but it’s very rare to play the same game for years on end – unless that game is Minecraft.
Since 2011, Minecraft has captivated the world in a way we’ve not seen in years, perhaps ever. It’s played on Android and iOS devices, PCs and Macs, and PlayStation, Xbox, and Nintendo consoles. Heck, it’s even being used to teach in schools now. Is there really another game that is as all-encompassing as Minecraft? There are conferences, all manner of merchandising, a recent story mode, and even a movie we’re told is being released one day this century.
What keeps this ball rolling? What is it that over 100 million users return for again and again, despite the game not exactly having memorable characters or an interesting narrative? It’s the ability to create. Of course, there are sandbox games which let us wander around and destroy as we see fit, but what’s evident is that people love – really love – to build, to produce, to mine, and definitely to craft. It’s nigh on impossible to find a game that lets you create to the scale that Minecraft does.
Today, we wish to give a little respect to some Minecrafters who spend their days turning blocks into replicas of real cities, or produced majestic worlds to rival the works of any science fiction writer. These folk don’t just want to play the game, but live it, often putting in countless hours of creation time over several years. Afterward, they can make their maps available to download, where others can marvel at the construction and engage in the newly built world. Although, it should be said that these digital architects aren’t always alone, and will often host their own servers and let others take part in community projects (for example, the Westeros server is a massive ongoing development which aims to recreate the lands from Game of Thrones).
When you’ve got the option to oversee a world of your own design, it’s not hard to see why many people turn out as server-gods in Minecraft. Your rules, your vision, your domain. Don’t like the way someone is behaving on your server? Ban them and move on; things can be very simple in the Minecraft world. Once you’ve understood how to set it up, you’ll have to offer something awesome to convince other gamers to play on your server, as there are a lot out there. Unless of course you simply wish to have a server on which you and your friends can romp about without a care, engage in epic PvP battles, or build gorgeous worlds like the ones you’re about to see. The options are virtually limitless as to where Minecraft can be taken.
So, without further ado, here are three amazing maps created by talented Minecrafters, which may well inspire your own creations one day…
LAST JUMP HERO
If your two loves are parkour and platform video games, then you’re in luck. Last Jump Hero, apart from the great name, is an incredibly fun download that should give a good 1.5 hours of jumping fun. With five levels to complete (Green Forest, Desert Hills, Sea of Lava, Hell, and Into the End), Last Jump Hero by Mehlie puts a Minecraft twist on a classic platformer like Prince of Persia. Jump like your life depends on it.
THE STAR WARS ADVENTURE MAP
Any Star Wars fan loves to picture themselves roaming the icy lands of Hoth or wandering around the intricate paths inside the Death Star. There are, of course, many great Star Wars video games, but for something more pixelated, give The Star Wars Adventure Map by Hypixel a download. With the option to play as a Stormtrooper or Jedi, you’ll be given plenty to do in the form of main and side quests, and you can expect the journey to last around 40 minutes. It’s well worth it to delve into the Star Wars universe once again.
CHICAGO
Those scenes in movies in which a character wanders around an empty city are always fascinating and a bit trippy (28 Days Later, Vanilla Sky, etc.), so imagine being able to do something similar in Minecraft. This download, created by 18-year-old Ryan Zull, is a blocky duplicate of Chicago, Illinois. You don’t exactly have to be an inhabitant of the Windy City to appreciate the faithful replication, as it’s simply stunning to marvel at the level of detail put in by Zull. Although the project only started in 2013, Zull says he is about 80% finished and plans to keep working on more details of Chicago. How about New York next please?
These are but three downloads we wanted to cover, but there are many more out there. It will be interesting to see how the release of Lego Worlds will shake the might of Minecraft, as players will be able to build epic creations with Lego pieces and landscaping tools, but somehow we think that people will be Minecrafting for a long, long time.
In March, Warner Bros is bringing its sandbox title Lego Worldsto console after nearly two years in open development.
The PS4 and Xbox One versions – with Nintendo Switch to follow – overhaul controls and add in story elements, but remain a Lego fans digital dream: a massive palette where almost anything imaginable can be built out of Lego, without the threat of stepping on a misplaced brick.
WIRED speaks with Chris Rose, associate producer at developer TT Games, on Lego Worlds‘ differences to certain other brick building games, lessons learned from releasing the game on Early Access, and whether Lego Batman will be making an appearance.
Chris Rose: It’s not just Minecraft – we get compared to all the different building games, I’ve heard just about every comparison out there! I’d say the biggest differences we’ve got would be the brick resolution, which improves the terrain. A lot of sandbox games are what we call voxel-based, so cubes, or smaller cubes making up larger cubes. Generally speaking, they’re set to a few shapes, and that’s how you build the world around you.
We were adamant we wanted to make sure the worlds were as natural looking as we could get them, using slopes and bricks of all sorts of shapes and sizes. We felt, being Lego, there’s no ‘default’ – every brick is as relevant and useful as the next one, so it was important the terrain looked like it included as much Lego as possible.
Warner Bros / TT Games
Then we have the active vehicles, things like drills and steamrollers; tools like bazookas to blow up huge chunks of terrain; creatures like dragons and T-rex that you fly and ride. I think we’re at the point now [from Early Access] where people have finally recognised that actually, Lego Worlds is a very different game. The only similarity to other builder games is that, well, you can build stuff.
How does the difference in Lego brick shapes meaningfully change the experience?
It lets you create at a different scale. If you’re building something that has a lot of roundness to it, you have to make it quite big when you’ve only got cubes available to you. We’ve given you the shapes to make objects on a much smaller scale. If you want a bigger scale, you can do that anyway, but it means you don’t have to do huge recreations of stuff – you can build 1:1, or slightly bigger or smaller.
We’ve also added tons of door and window types. It sounds pretty simple but a bank vault door is pretty big – you want to make sure it feels weighty as well, like you can’t easily destroy it.
You launched in Early Access on Steam in 2015. What have you learned in that time?
First and foremost how much people wanted this game to be made. We knew people would like it, but we were blown away by how positive people were towards it. Even the negative reactions weren’t full blown “we hate this” – they were reasoned complaints that made sense. [It gave us] information to take on board, so we could reconsider some of the decisions we’d made.
[For instance], the UI has changed four times in the past two years, and one of those never even saw the light of day. We hated it, it wasn’t good enough.
Mainly, we wanted to try out new stuff. Because we were in Early Access, we were in an environment where you can use some trial and error – people are a bit more forgiving when you have that approach.
Warner Bros / TT Games
Bringing the game to consoles, how have you adapted the more precise controls of mouse and keyboard?
We’ve iterated the controls four or five times, with all sorts of tests – bringing kids in, public tests, and feedback from the community.
We’d supported controllers [on PC], but with mouse and keyboard you can get in close. My approach was that [in any form] a pointer should act like a trackpad. I used to exclusively play Worlds in Early Access on a trackpad. I thought the [controller’s] thumbstick should behave in a similar manner, so we used that as a focus. The pointer behaves in places like you’d expect a mouse to, just a very slow mouse, but the actual building tools themselves are finely tuned so they don’t shoot off or snap bricks out of place.
You’ve announced you’ll be allowing players to share their Lego Worlds creations – how will that work?
It’ll be involve sharing models more than whole worlds, because the world data size is massive. We don’t want to over-do it and eat up people’s bandwidth usage. We settled on the models as they’re a lot smaller – some of them are only a few megabytes. The idea is you’ll use a tool in-game to copy what you want to capture, go into a micro-editor, and when you save it there’s a tick box to upload it to our servers.
Will you allow world sharing if there’s demand?
I wouldn’t say it’s inconceivable [but we’ll see] if we get enough feedback. What we have said is that when the game is out we’re going to do something very similar to what we did in Early Access – every once in a while, we’re going to step back and absorb the information, listen to what everyone is saying.
We’ll do that for the release of the title, as we’re effectively starting over with more people involved, with Xbox and PlayStation players coming in. If people turn around and say they want to share their entire world, then we’ll figure something out.
Warner Bros / TT Games
Will user-created content be cross compatible between formats?
The model file is Lego’s own system. If you have the LDD tool – Lego Digital Designer – there’s a filetype called LXFML. You could build something on the PC version now in LDD, import it into your save file folder, and it’ll work in the game. Obviously you can’t get into the directories on console, but it’s still LXFML that we use, so shared models will be cross compatible.
Lego games are almost synonymous with licenced characters – will other properties be coming to Worlds?For now, we’ve taken the approach that [i]Lego Dimensions was the mash-up. We’d like Worlds to sit in its own bubble for a while and be free of those IP approaches, or being tied into all that. We’re trying to focus it very heavily on the Lego themes – City, Creator, Minifigs for characters – and we’ve found that’s working quite well. Some people are asking us “can we get a Star Wars pack, an Indiana Jones pack, a Lego Batman pack?” It’s not that we don’t want to, it’s just that we think we’ve done those in other ways, so we don’t want to over-do it. It’s nice to have a game that isn’t tied into any other franchises.
Lego Worlds launches on PS4 and Xbox One on March 10; the Nintendo Switch release date for the game has not been revealed.
Developer Mojang has updated Minecraft for Windows 10 Mobile, and you can get it for free if you already own it and update your Windows Phone 8 device to Windows 10 Mobile. In this version of the game, players can access important new features like achievements, the update that adds Minecraft’s The End region, and the Realms multiplayer functionality. That support for Realms also means that you can use your Windows 10 Mobile smartphone to log into official Mojang servers to play online with you friends on iPhone, Android, or Windows 10 PCs.
“We stopped shipping Minecraft updates for Windows Phone 8 back in October last year,” Mojang developer Marsh Davies wrote in a blog post. “Of course, players can still carry on building and exploring their worlds as they always have, but, to get access to the newest Minecraft goodies, DLC, and other fun stuff, you’ll have to upgrade to the Windows 10 Mobile version of the game.”
This is a small part of Mojang and Microsoft’s efforts to bring all of Minecraft under one code base. The game still runs on separate foundations when it comes to the original PC version, the console versions, and the mobile versions, but the company has made a lot of effort to bring all of the mobile versions into parity. Moving ahead, the companies have a long-term plan to further join together the various offshoots of Minecraft across platforms.
