If you’re into Minecraft, good news! Dungeons & Dragons has partnered with the blocky video game to create a special adventure that mimics some parts of the D&D mechanics and gameplay. The new DLC will be available in spring of this year, and has some unique features for Minecraft, including dice rolling for combat, your choice of four classes (Paladin, Barbarian, Wizard, and Rogue), and for the first time in Minecraft history — voice acting.
As you can see from the images here, the details of the world of the Forgotten Realms have been meticulously transposed into cube-y glory. The adventure that D&D developed in collaboration with Minecraft will consist of approximately 10 hours of gameplay, and the DLC will support both single player and multiplayer adventures, although Riccardo Lenzi, Senior Producer at Mojang Studios, admits that it will be a better gameplay experience with just a single adventurer. You’ll be able to fight a lot of classic D&D beasties, from Beholders to Mind Flayers, Displacer Beasts to Dragons.
This is intended to be a way to reach new audiences and give kids who primarily play Minecraft a way to experience D&D without necessarily having to play it. While it’s great for Minecraft fans, it’s not really going to give D&D fans much to do except learn how to play through an adventure in Minecraft. For what it is, it looks cool, but it definitely feels like just another licensing opportunity — and looking at it from the perspective of someone who mostly cares about D&D, the whole thing seems relatively soulless, despite the huge amount of work and investment put into the project.