After falling out with Microsoft over his offensive social media posts, the creator of Minecraft is looking to make his own sequel.
Some video games don’t really need sequels, and that probably includes Minecraft. It’s the best-selling video game ever made, having sold over 300 million copies, and every month millions of fans continue to play it, despite it being over a decade old.
As such, publisher Microsoft has no reason to invest in a follow-up and is currently content merely to port Minecraft to newer platforms. It finally came to PlayStation 5 in October and you can definitely expect a Nintendo Switch 2 version once that console is released.
Yet it sounds like a Minecraft 2 could very well happen. Not from Microsoft or developer Mojang Studios, but from the man who created Minecraft in the first place: Markus ‘Notch’ Persson.
In a social media post from January 1, Persson shared a poll asking his followers whether they’d be more interested in the new roguelike dungeon crawler he’s working on or Minecraft 2. Unsurprisingly, the latter proved the more popular choice, with 81.5% of the votes at time of writing.
Over the weekend, Persson reiterated he’s ‘100% serious about all that,’ explaining to one confused fan that he ‘basically announced Minecraft 2.’ He added, ‘I don’t super duper care exactly which game I make first (or even if I make more), but I do know I’m making one.’
Persson has more accurately described the new game as ‘a spiritual successor to Minecraft.’ After all, he can’t actually call it Minecraft 2 without getting a visit from Microsoft’s lawyers, since Persson sold the Minecraft IP for $2.5 billion in 2014.
Has Minecraft creator Notch made any other games after Minecraft?
Persson had expressed an interest in continuing to work in game development even after leaving Mojang. In the last decade, though, he hasn’t released any new games.
He did found a new studio called Rubberbrain in 2014 but, according to a 2021 report from Swedish outlet Aftonbladet, the company burned away 60 million SEK (about £4.3 million) with no new games to show for it.
Since then, all the studio has done is see a rebrand. It’s now called Bitshift Entertainment, with its website consisting of nothing but a studio logo.
‘I also intend to do this in a way that in no way tried to sneakily infringe on the incredible work the Mojang team is doing…,’ said Persson. Although it seems he isn’t entirely pleased with how Minecraft has turned out without him, saying Microsoft is ‘successfully doing the Microsoft s***tification about [sic].’
Persson’s hostility only makes more sense when you remember that he and Microsoft haven’t exactly been on good terms since the sale.
What happened to Minecraft creator Notch?
After leaving Mojang, the following years saw Persson become less known for creating Minecraft and more for the bigoted comments he posted on social media.
For instance, in 2017, he spoke in favour of a heterosexual pride day and said anyone against the concept was a ‘complete f***ing c***’ and ‘deserve to be shot.’ The backlash led to him deleting the offending posts (but this is the internet so you can still find them) and apologising.
He’s also made and deleted transphobic statements, referring to the idea of transgender people as a ‘mental illness,’ and has expressed support for the far right movement QAnon (via Newsweek).
One set of posts he didn’t delete or apologise for was when he publicly called developer Zoë Quinn a ‘f***ing c***’ and said feminism was a ‘social disease.’
As a result of all that, Microsoft decided it wanted nothing to do with him and in 2019 the company removed almost all references to Persson from Minecraft, with only the credits acknowledging he was ever involved with the game.
That same year, Persson was not only not invited to an anniversary party for Minecraft, but Microsoft made it clear it was because, ‘His comments and opinions do not reflect those of Microsoft or Mojang and are not representative of Minecraft.’
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