We’re always a little wary of fabricated genre names. Hybrid labels cooked up by studios to describe their creations often tend more toward the aspirational than the descriptive. But if they’re taken as statements of intent, Mojang Studios’ positioning of Minecraft Legends is an intriguing one. Meshing the base building and resource gathering of realtime strategy, the mob stomping of MOBAs and Pikmin-like minion management, ‘action strategy’ seems on first impression a decent label. It’s also something of a misnomer, and one we can only imagine is intended to euphemistically describe this mash-up that wobbles under its own porous weight. Ultimately, we’d suggest ‘monotonous turtling’ as a more apt description.

Ditching the typical strategic birds-eye view, you’re brought down to earth to take control of a squareheaded hero and defend the Overworld from an invading force of piglins (Minecraft’s Nether-dwelling porcine foes). Their fortresses are dotted across a procedurally generated campaign map, in between villages that need protecting when the sun goes down. It leads into a steady cadence – taking the fight to the piglins during the day, before fast-travelling back to whichever village has earned their attention at night – with room to explore the Overworld between battles. Resources, from basic wood and stone to rarer diamond and coal, can be gathered on the fly, as vast areas are picked clean at your command. Troops, too, can be recruited in seconds from portable spawn points, giving you time to explore.