Developer Mojang Studios, Double Eleven

Publisher Xbox Game Studios

Format PC, Xbox One (tested)

Release Out now

Can you dig it? No, you can’t. There is no mining or crafting in Minecraft Dungeons whatsoever. It does, to be fair, have dungeons, which are filled to bursting with the enemies that trouble your night-times in Minecraft’s survival mode. A dungeon-crawler in the mould of Diablo, the aim is to fight your way through hordes of these foes to a boss fight, pick up loot, return to camp to sort through your treasures for higher-level gear, and repeat. Minus the class traits or deeper RPG-style progression elements, this is a family-friendly introduction to the dungeon-crawling genre.

Somehow, though, Minecraft Dungeons proves to be slightly more than Diablo in nappies. Even those well-versed in isometric action-RPGs will find something appealing here, since Dungeons succeeds in distilling the purest essence of what constitutes a good dungeon crawler. It nails the basics of fighting, looting and levelling so precisely that it briefly - very briefly - makes us wonder why we ever spent all that time fiddling in inventory screens and agonising over builds.