Minecraft Dungeons (Only PC)

Minecraft Dungeons for PC, while coming from the same developers as the beloved crafting game, is not an open world, there is no mining and you cannot build anything. Instead, it is a dungeon crawler that relies on hacking and slashing to get you through the various levels, with a storyline to play along, which just happens to be set in the same world as the original Minecraft game. You can play solo, with four local players or multiplayer on an online server.

What’s the Story?

A lengthy opening scene lays out the story: Archie, an illager is driven away from his home and stumbles across a powerful artefact, the Orb of Dominance. While he uses the device’s power, the device corrupts him, and soon he becomes the Arch-Illager. It is up to the player to find and free him from the orb’s influence without letting Archie realise what you are up to and try and stop you!

You are given power-ups, as might be expected, but rather unexpectedly, instead of the usual weaponry, you are given magical enchantments and spells which allows for rather more creativity in the combat scenes than usual. Weapons are still there, of course, you have a choice of a long distance weapon, a hand-to-hand combat weapon, and a suit of armour to keep you safe. Reaching enchantment points allows you to replenish your levels and offers magical upgrades to all your equipment.

To keep things fresh, you play through nine different territories or biomes, and do be sure to take your time thoroughly exploring each new area before moving on. Despite the name of the game, not all the biomes are underground, and there are some charming and fun places to visit – a special mention goes out to the autumn-themed village which has jack-a-lanterns on every doorstep, harvest-ready crops sitting in the fields and brilliantly coloured fall leaves drifting about throughout, the whole making a cheerful and inviting spectacle.

The Nitty Gritty

Even fairly old PCs will cope easily with game and the graphics flow well without major glitching or lagging. The graphics are familiar and true to Minecraft’s distinctive blocky world, with the addition of some rather excellent special effects (fx) added in, for example, the play of lightning through stained glass windows which is eerie, beautiful and unexpected, and the heat shimmer on and around lava which gives the primitive hind-brain a genuine prickle of unease at approaching too closely.

The sound-track is good and nicely subtle, distinctively Minecraftian, but rejigged for a crawler adding tension in more advanced levels, without this emphasis ever becoming obvious or distracting.

The difficulty of the game is set around the skills of your characters, increasing as you play and gain experience and level up. However, you can set levels within the range that the game feels your character can cope with, so you can set it low in order to grind to gain resources, or turn it up for more of a challenge.

Who’s the Baddie?

All the memorable fellows that you love to hate in the original game are the Villains in this game too. Look out for:

Zombies

Creepers

Skeletons

Enchanters

Witches

And more! All of the above can come at you in mobs, making for hair-raising combat sessions. And as if that wasn’t enough, there are occasional big bads who make your life exceedingly difficult for a while! Red Stone Golem and Enderman deserve special mention – but that’s enough for now! Get playing!

Minecraft Dungeons for PC for PC is available for purchase on Instant Gaming for a fraction of its retail price. You will receive an official key and be able to play the game in seconds. Play smart. Pay less.
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