Minecraft Legends is another installment in the Minecraft game franchise.
While regular Minecraft is known and loved for its sandbox gameplay, Mojang’s other games have tried to expand the Minecraft aesthetic into other genres.
Minecraft Dungeons tried to introduce Minecraft players to the dungeon-crawling experience and Minecraft Legends aims to bring us into the world of real time strategy games.
These two games, although sharing aesthetics, are much different from regular Minecraft, but how similar are they to each other?
Story
The story of Minecraft Legends is not going to be tied to Dungeons. It will play out a bit differently too.
While in Dungeons you had a single enemy you had to track down and defeat, while fighting through hoards of his minion, in Legends an entire faction is your enemy.
The Piglins don’t have a single leader and seem to act as a collective villain.
The way your character is introduced is also different. In Dungeons you are the savior who has chosen to stand up to the Illager’s leader and stop his evil reign.
In Legends you are chosen by the Hosts, a trio of brand new mobs that act as your guides in the story and teach you the basic mechanics.
They are also voicing the notifications you or your enemy get for base upgrades.
Gameplay
Minecraft Dungeons took a much different approach to Minecraft’s core gameplay and Legends is following in those footsteps.
In both Dungeons and Legends there are none of the typical sandbox elements; you do not collect resources to craft tools, weapons, and items to build with. Instead, you find what you need or have somebody else gather for you.
In Dungeons everything you need you find in the form of loot dropped by enemies.
In Legends you find your necessary items and resources by destroying piglin encampments or by finding resources on the surface, where you employ allays to gather the resources for you.
This is rather typical of RTS games, where your units do the work for you.
The controls are more similar to Minecraft Dungeons than base Minecraft.
Both games are played in 3rd person with an adapted toolbar and health bar in the center. This is where you access your weapons and necessary items.
Though, Minecraft Legends is far more complex with its mechanics.
The toolbar expands into 4 different toolbars, each having its own purpose and item categories that can be placed into it from the journal.
The combat is also vastly different.
While Dungeons puts your character in the center of combat, in Legends all the combat mechanics are about commanding your troops. You have just a basic sword and a basic sword attack.
All the fighting is done specifically by your allies.
On the surface it may seem like a rather basic set of controls and toolbars, just like Dungeons had, but there is a lot more you can do. Not only with your building controls, but you have a lot of versatility in how you use the troops you command.
In the beginning, you will see your troops attack any enemy on sight, but there is a whole other toolbar of commands to explore and use.
Your enemies also have their own different troops that you have to learn how to combat. The piglins have their own archers, tanks, and other similar units.
Luckily, your journal contains all the information you may need about different mobs.
Aesthetic
The aesthetic is probably one of the most important aspects to any Minecraft game. The style of Minecraft is something anyone can recognize and to most players its what draws them into the game.
Minecraft Dungeons had kept the Minecraft aesthetic and made it better.
With better graphics and lighting, it made the blocky world look familiar yet new. It held up to its title amazingly.
However, Minecraft is also known for its music.
The beautiful lo-fi music was kept in Minecraft Dungeons and it will also be following you in your adventure through Minecraft Legends, of course with some additional tracks.
Just like Dungeons, Minecraft Legends will have different music playing when in combat or facing certain foes, but the soundtrack is still very much thematically appropriate.
Being able to enjoy the relaxing music we all associate with Minecraft is very important.
What to do Next
In Minecraft Dungeons you were able to equip several different character skins at the start of your game.
In Minecraft Legends, not only will you be able to customize your character, but with the Deluxe edition you’ll be able to reskin your mounts. It’s worth looking at the Deluxe edition to see if it’s worth the purchase.
