Minecraft Legends: Classic Mobs and New Friends

[MUSIC] We are going to have a couple vanilla  Minecraft mobs in Legends, so you’re   going to see some familiar ones – the  creepers, the skeletons, and the zombies,   and then we also introduce the Plank Golem, the  Cobblestone Golem, Grindstone Golem and the Mossy Golem.

And then the rest you’re just  gonna have to find out in the game .  [LEGENDS THEME MUSIC] When we first started thinking of Minecraft Legends, we had to find a partner who had the expertise to build strategic games, and when we ran across Blackbird  Interactive they have a great resume and so we  

Started collaborating more and more and they  understood Minecraft very well. The mobs in Legends are still going to be very recognizable,  they have that same look and feel with a little bit of a twist. One difference you’ll notice  is they’re not hostile. So in the game the hero

Befriend them, they become allies, as  opposed to what you see in vanilla Minecraft   today where they are hostile in and around  the world. The game is a utopia, so you have a bit of a different relationship with something like the creeper

In our game than you would in  vanilla Minecraft because when you see creepers  you’re scared of them and you kind of want to run away, and we needed to keep that kind of, you  know, it explodes when it gets near something so   we worked that into the mechanic, but keeping 

The texture, proportions, making sure we maintain its like iconic facial features. We tried making the zombie smile, and whatnot, but it didn’t quite seem in character.  You know we tried to take the  personality of the characters into consideration   We put hats on them!

Yeah, yeah we put hats on them. We made them cuter, bigger eyes, more appealing.   I think the animation team did a really  good job. The reason we ended up putting hats on the zombie and the skeleton is because as any Minecraft player knows they burn in daytime

So we had to kind of justify a way for them to not turn  into flame in the middle of the day so we had to   come up with some hats that were appropriate to  their personality, but playing off of the like  

Vanilla mechanic of they can wear a helm and then  they don’t explode. So we had some fun with that.   It’s this idyllic world, there’s nothing but peace. All the beings   of the Overworld coexisting with harmony,  without fear. But then something does get   introduced to their pristine world: a  species called the piglins. They found  

Their way to cross over and they’re there  to devour, take everything that’s not theirs. [MUSIC INTENSIFIES] We kind of just treated them a bit like they  were children, that were kind of armed with the   resources to do what they want, but maybe not the  knowledge of how to do it well.

So like the grunters and the runts, you know they’re the ones  that kind of get sent in first. There’s a million of them, they die really quickly. They’re tiny guys and they offer quite a bit of comedy relief  

Because they’re small and they’re holding these  like large weapons that are too big for their  body. Animation like worked on them and they  looked like they were unbalanced all the time. We just had a lot of fun with, how do you separate  these different hordes of piglins from each other,  

But still keep that main sort of theme that they come from the Nether. And at the time that   we were designing it the Nether Update hadn’t  come out yet and so as we were designing for   the piglins we kind of had to keep our head in  a swivel,

Because we have to, you know, try and  keep pace with what vanilla Minecraft is doing. We had to find ways to introduce new things that are unique to this game, but at the same time we had to  make sure that the story and the mystery that is  

So dear to the Minecraft franchise is respected. So always finding that nice middle ground has   been a constant challenge, but I think we got to a  really good place and we’re really happy about it. [MUSIC] We wanted to design a ranged unit that kind of  acted as a turret, and the animation department  

Did such a great job about getting them like  personality because the plank golem kind of   reminds me of a golden retriever a little bit, he’s  just kind of like happy and scrappy and then the  

Cobblestone golem, he was meant to be like a melee  unit, so kind of up close and personal, kind of slow   steady, they’re like your workhorses. They’ll get  the job done. The grindstone golems, they’re the disruptors, so they’re going to come in and kind  

Of knock back any enemy units, probably to make room for the range units to come in and help. And the mossy golems are the support units. So they come in, they have kind of this like water effect that heals any of the allies or the hero  if they’re kind of in their their area.

One of the things that you’ll notice straight away when you see all these new golems is that they’re cute,  they’re adorable. From a story perspective it makes sense that they’re innocent-looking because this is a peaceful idyllic world.   What they didn’t know is that they possess an  ability that can be helpful in the battlefield.

That’s kind of the behind the  idea of making these golems  seem innocent, but they’re so much more than that. Once you acquire other units later you kind of  understand how they slot in in the hierarchy   of the other units. You might think like, oh  well, the skeleton also is a ranged unit.

You learn kind of through trial and error, like  when you will use, you know, a plank golem and   when you use a skeleton. When you’re playing  through the game you don’t really feel like   you’re missing out on anything. Whether or not  you play with the new units or whether or not  

You play with vanilla Minecraft units, they kind  of offer something different for every player.