Minecraft's Diablo-inspired spinoff is getting a surprise sequel this year

The Minecraft umbrella holds a whole host of games and a movie starring Jack Black at this point, but few of Mojang's experiments in other genres were quite as good as Minecraft Dungeons. It might have been 'baby's first Diablo,' but it seemed to garner more fans than its so-so action-RTS cousin—and if you're among those fans, it's a good day for you: A sequel is coming very soon.

The news came during today's Minecraft Live showcase in the form of a brief teaser trailer that shows the game's voxel-based fantasy realm under fire once again. A narrator recaps the story thus far, saying that "with peace restored, all was well until it wasn't." Sounds like justification enough to bash some monsters up for loot.

There's no gameplay footage to go off, and the new Steam page just shows screenshots from the new cinematic, so there's not much to get excited about just yet if you're a Minecraft Dungeons layman. Still, this announcement shows that Mojang hasn't shied away from spinoffs due to Legends' mixed reception, and should please any fans of Minecraft lore itching to dive back into Dungeons' lighthearted fantasy world.

The original didn't take the ARPG world by storm, but it fielded plenty of positive review scores in the 7/10 hemisphere. PC Gamer contributor Rachel Watts said in her review that "it doesn't have anything in particular that makes it stand out, but it's a fun, streamlined take on the dungeon crawl genre."

You might call that damning by faint praise, but it's better than I'd have expected from a spinoff of a creative building game trying to appeal both to children and the sort of sickos that pore over loot tables until their eyes sting.

Minecraft Dungeons 2's release is planned for sometime this year, so it shouldn't be long until we see more of the game and can get an idea of how it'll compare to the original. Maybe it will help fill the void in my heart I've reserved for Hytale's upcoming adventure mode.