Mojang Rules Out Minecraft 2: ‘Do You Think We’re Going to Have an Earth 2?’

Minecraft celebrated its 15th anniversary last year, but despite growing into those troublesome teenage years, it appears that developer Mojang has no plans to replace it with a sequel.

On a recent trip to the Stockholm studio, IGN asked about the possibility of the best-selling game of all time getting a sequel. Ingela Garneij, executive producer of Minecraft Vanilla, had an amusing, yet to-the-point answer for us: “Do you think we’re going to have an Earth 2? No, no, there’s no Minecraft 2.”

While Minecraft 2.0 is evidently not on the horizon, that doesn’t mean the survival-crafting phenomenon won’t continue to evolve. In fact, plans stretch way into the future, with a goal of at least doubling its current lifespan.

“We’ve existed for 15 years”, stated Garneij. “We want to exist at least 15 years more so we actually, Agnes [Larsson, Minecraft Vanilla’s game director] and I, we work as a team. We set the vision and strategy for our game for what can we do beyond that.”

It’s an ambition propelled by Mojang’s desire to innovate, continuing the mine and craft, so to speak, new ideas upon their rock-solid foundations. Those foundations are beginning to show their age, though, Garneij admitted, and while there are no plans for an engine overhaul, it does mean that new content, such as the newly revealed Vibrant Visuals graphics update, does take time to put into practice.

“I think the age of the game is a challenge,” Garneij said. “It’s a 15-year-old platform, 15-year-old technology that slows us down in one sense. So other new games have new engines, and they can run really fast. So I would say the technology and our age [are our biggest challenges].”

Despite this, Minecraft continues to be one of the most popular games in the world, and, as far as we can tell, shows no signs of slowing down. There’s also no plan for Minecraft to go free-to-play or take advantage of generative AI technology. Just don’t expect to be playing Minecraft 2 in the near future. Not on this Earth, anyway.

Simon Cardy is a Senior Editorial Producer who can mainly be found skulking around open world games, indulging in Korean cinema, or despairing at the state of Tottenham Hotspur and the New York Jets. Follow him on Bluesky at @cardy.bsky.social.