Mojang keeps posting Minecraft pixel-style concept game art, and I want them to be real

Source: Mojang

Ane matter Microsoft has gotten much better at in recent years is social media. The company's various teams across Xbox and Windows have gotten really good at engaging customers and fans of their products, and Microsoft's game studios are no unlike.

Obsidian has an impressive TikTok account full of creative news takes for its varied games. Wasteland 3 studio inXile is non shy to ratio cheeky gamers on its Twitter business relationship either. The Microsoft primary account for Xbox has also gotten really adept, full of hilarious (and fifty-fifty award-winning) memery and frequent engagement with the community. I think I take to say, though, my favorite social media presence across all of Xbox is probably Mojang, of Minecraft fame.

Mojang in some ways has to shoulder a bigger audition than Xbox itself, with one of the well-nigh played games in history. Minecraft is more than a mere game at this indicate and has become something of a cultural phenomenon. The game'south unique cozy feel besides permeates the company's social presence, particularly on Instagram, with fun and cute posts that celebrate the various aspects of the blocky craft 'em up.

The social team at Mojang has started posting pixel art for imaginary Minecraft games lately. They're fun takes on alternative-universe games where Minecraft existed as a pixel-style side-scroller on the NES or a top-down RPG on the Game Male child. Kudos to the artists, because increasingly I detect myself actually wanting these games.

Layers of nostalgia

Source: Mojang

Nostalgia is a hell of a drug, and then the saying goes. Information technology works pretty well on social media besides. Video games and movies are being remade with reckless carelessness, with mixed results. Of course, nostalgia is very marketable. It's fun and fuzzy, in a earth that seems uncertain and chaotic at the best of times. Allow'southward not become besides nighttime though, eh?

Like many of you reading this, I accept nostalgia for the '90s, particularly so the second-gaming era of the Master System, the Super Nintendo, and then on. Games like Gunstar Heroes, Pokémon Xanthous, Super Metroid, and more, remind me of those cozy times. Marrying that experience with Minecraft is a natural fit.

Retro-inspired games are big business too. There are tons of pixel-style games on the market right now, with games like Narita Boy and Star Renegades modernizing the style. What was once a hardware restriction has become a calling card to simpler times, and Minecraft itself patently extends that nostalgia with its blocky fine art way, consummate with large pixels.

Imagining what Minecraft would take looked like on a NES or a Sega Mega Drive is a fun practise, simply could information technology be a reality?

An opportunity to explore new genres

Source: Mojang

Minecraft has started branching out and exploring new genres in recent years. Minecraft Earth may have flopped and failed, just Minecraft Dungeons found continued success as an isometric Diablo-like, that leveraged Minecraft's lore and globe and elevated it. These social posts brand me interested in the possibilities.

Pixel art potentially allows Minecraft to explore other genres without going deep on photo-realistic graphics and the associated tech. I can envisage a Stardew Valley-style Minecraft game that emphasizes farming mechanics, community building, with light isometric RPG gainsay as well. What about a Pokemon-mode RPG? That uses some of the critters and creatures they dreamt upward for Minecraft Earth? Of course, I also love the idea of a side-scrolling action-platformer Minecraft, maybe with some of the earthworks features, exploring caves and dungeons while battling pixel-styled Ghasts or Endermen.

Perhaps it'll never happen, but hey, the artwork is so cool I just can't help but imagine it.

One thing's for sure: More Minecraft is coming

Sure, these concepts are probably just that: concepts, but they're fun enough to spark the imagination. Ane thing I know for sure: At that place is more Minecraft coming. I know from trusted sources that Mojang has at least ii all-new projects that aren't Minecraft or Minecraft Dungeons, although I have no idea exactly what those games might look like. Perhaps we'll discover that all of those pixel-style art posts were in fact teases for full-blown projects ... or maybe not. One can hope, though.

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