I’ll start this review with a bit of context. Respawn Station began in 2021, on the heels of the COVID-19 pandemic, as a way for our nerdy team to write about video games. We grew up enamored with gaming magazines, and the rise of indie outlets online gave us the chance to do our own thing. I still remember when we got accredited as a press site, and that little adrenaline rush every time we got emailed a code for review. Well, even after all these years, that rush hasn’t gone away, and Minecraft Dungeons II was one of the biggest yet because when I opened my front door, I was not expecting a physical copy of a game at my feet. In 2026, no less.
I had played the first Minecraft Dungeons in 2023, two years after its release. I never wrote a review for it, but I agreed with the general sentiment of it being a “baby’s first” Diablo game. It had fun combat with approachable stat sheets. It was easy to compare items without needing to get into the weeds of character builds. And clocking in at around eight hours to beat, it didn’t overstay its welcome either. With Minecraft Dungeons II, my hope was for more of those approachable gameplay mechanics, perhaps with more polish. In some ways, Dungeons II delivers on that promise, though its rough edges are still very present.
My last preface is that there is no Minecraft prerequisite needed to play Minecraft Dungeons II. (Not even the first one to be honest.) There is no mining or crafting here to speak of. Though experienced players will undoubtedly find more charming details in its Overworld. There are certain terms that are baked into the Minecraft lore, like Illagers and Endermen, but context clues fill in the blanks well enough, and plain fantasy names like Puddle Pond and Howling Woods are easy-to-remember locations without much confusion.
Minecraft Dungeons II is a blocky action RPG centered around a hero of your creation as they work to stop Illagers from corrupting the Overworld. This involves going from one villager to another, following leads, and fighting foes across the vibrant biome. The big hook for this sequel is the Sift, an all-new pastel-colored dimension in Minecraft with its own breed of dangers. The story in the game is fine, but the quests are mostly an excuse to send players to different corners of the map.
If you get tired of repetitive mission structures, then I regret to inform you that this one’s going to be a slog. Most of the quests in this sequel are “oh no, this important villager is lost in this general area,” and you have the assumed task, as the hero, to find them. No matter how many illagers you must ragdoll in the process. However, if the gameplay does click with you, then the game does provide menial reasons to play more of it.
The gameplay of Minecraft Dungeons II is simple enough: square for melee attack and R2 for ranged. The play style for your hero is determined by your character build. Fighting with a flail and bow plays differently than daggers and a crossbow, and weapon rarities and equipment abilities increase that distinction even further. There are also item slots that can be activated with triangle, circle, and R1. These consume Souls to produce status effects or supercharge your attacks. These are all fairly intuitive controls, and it doesn’t take long to get into the flow of combat, which is a good thing because the game will sometimes throw such large mobs at you that you don’t really have time to second-guess your moves.
Most notable action RPGs are built around power fantasy. You might start off naked (metaphorically) and weak, but give it time and you’ll be decked out in rare armor, slashing through hordes that would have intimidated you in the early hours. To this end, Minecraft Dungeons II is decent. Five hours into the game (halfway through if you’re taking the time to do side quests), I not only saw the damage numbers getting higher, but I felt like my character was more badass overall. Although I’m not quite sure if that fantasy is helped or hindered by the Minecraft coat of paint.
Speaking of which, I suppose we should talk about how the game looks. For the most part, this is one of Minecraft Dungeons‘ strongest aspects. Save for some texture pop-in, the game is visually great, looking like Minecraft with a shiny new texture pack and a few shaders installed. In combination with the music and sound, Minecraft Dungeons II is a fitting game for the season. It’s not scary by any means, but walking around the Howling Woods with the music stirring in the background evoked cozy Halloween vibes. Special mention goes to the bloom. Be it torches around town or loot drops from enemies, things glow nicely in the game. And indicating which player a piece of loot is for by the light it emits is a nice touch to minimize loot confusion.
Loot is dropped by slain enemies and is player-specific, which means you cannot pick up another player’s loot, nor can you trade. You can play through the game relying entirely on the luck of the drop, but for the smoothest experience (without being underpowered at a boss), you have to visit the towns. Here you can find the Town Merchant, who will sell weapons and items for emeralds, the Enchantsmith, who can enchant abilities to your equipment, and the Blacksmith, who can level all of it up in exchange for shards. The menus for these merchants are easy to understand, with toggleable stats for easy comparison.
A key part of the Minecraft Dungeons gameplay experience is co-op, and Dungeons II lets you team up with up to four players. I played the first game by myself, but now that I’m married, I had the pleasure of bringing my wife along for the ride. This is really what kept drawing me back to the game time and time again. Sitting on the couch, controller in hand, sniffing out secrets and quibbling over deaths was really fun and elevated the game far beyond its fetch-quest-ridden story. And, for what it’s worth, the “baby’s first” Diablo is still apt here, as this was my wife’s introduction to the genre, and it didn’t take long for her to start analysing stats and chasing builds.
One important distinction I want to make when talking about Minecraft Dungeons II as a loot-chasing action RPG is the runtime. Most games in the genre take anywhere from 20 to 50 hours to beat; meanwhile, Dungeons II caps out at around 10 hours. You can double that if you’re a completionist, but regardless of your interest in weapon grinding and build optimization, there simply isn’t enough content in this game to keep you coming back. That’s not inherently a bad thing, but given the draw of this style of game, it’s certainly a point worth considering.
There are some rougher edges to Minecraft Dungeons II that surface in odd ways. Functionally, the bigger issues I’ve experienced have to do with the inventory management. While still in the Overworld, you can open your inventory to customize weapons and equipment. Both my wife and I have experienced a bug where we can’t swap out certain slots without going into the full-screen character tab. Another bug happened after a boss fight, where we went back to the fight zone for round two. The game seemed to have determined that we won the fight (even though the boss had half health before we died), and it gave us the loot and progressed the quest. Another nitpick I had was that the game often didn’t save my hero’s look. So every time we booted into the game, I had to reselect the correct skin.
To sum it up, Minecraft Dungeons II continues the series adopted legacy of being an approachable action RPG. Odd bugs in the roughly ten-hour experience soured the game a bit, but in the end, playing with my wife, grinding for loot and challenging bosses, was a fun way to wind down at the end of a long day. Minecraft Dungeons II is out now on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch, Switch 2, and PC via Steam and the Windows Store. The base game is $30 across digital storefronts. There is a physical Deluxe Edition that’s $50 and bundles in the Soul Pack, featuring 4 hero skins, the Soul cape cosmetic item, the Blub pet companion, and DLC 1 and 2 whenever they release in the future. A big thank you to the PR team for sending over a physical copy for review.
