Wait, how did Lego beat Minecraft to making a city builder?


Lego announced a city builder called Lego Skylines last month and we all collectively said: “Oh yeah, duh.” A landscape of colorful bricks snapping together into a metropolis from the godlike perspective we already view our real life Legos just makes sense.

Hold on, what about the brand I affectionately refer to as “digital Legos”? Minecraft should by rights have spawned a city building spinoff by now. How were Lego and Mojang not competing over this category of PC players years ago?

Minecraft as a city builder:

Minecraft 1.20 - Steve celebrates his new camel pal

It makes sense

  • Templated structures like villages, temples, and fortresses are already a staple in vanilla Minecraft
  • Villagers: we love to exploit ’em and give them jobs
  • Minecraft players love to build, why not cities?
  • The first generation of Minecraft players (me) are Old™ now and we can appreciate slower, strategic games
  • There are Minecraft mods for this, so players definitely like the idea
  • Minecraft already has several spinoffs in other genres (Minecraft Dungeons and Minecraft Legends)

Minecraft - Alex holds a telescope

Maybe it doesn’t?

  • This is so obvious that maybe Mojang has prototyped one internally and it just wasn’t great
  • Maybe it’s on the to-do list but Mojang hasn’t found a partner studio to work on it
  • Minecraft spinoffs have a mixed track record. Minecraft Dungeons is good but Minecraft Legends is not.
Lauren Morton headshot

Lauren Morton

I am totally in favour of the concept. Minecraft villages are just cool as heck and I want to build at that scale instead of block by block:

Minecraft plains village

Minecraft forest village spawned on top of a lake

Minecraft - a desert village spawned on top of a lake

Minecraft savannah village

Minecrfat village on top of a plains plateau

Minecraft ice tundra village surrounded by ice spikes



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