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on December 16, 2025
Thankfully, the incredibly accessible nature of the game, and the way it so generously doles out moments of instant gratification, make the shared pursuit of the perfect run not a frustrating proposition that only yields its rewards upon completion, but a journey filled with a series of those little moments that define any great multiplayer experience. Monaco may not look like the multiplayer heist game we always envisioned, but it certainly feels like it.
He's not the only one who thinks so. A quick Google Image search of "Minecraft Wii U" reveals a host of fan made mock ups that make it clear why a Wii U version of Minecraft would not only make sense, but may result in the definitive version of the game.
The episode doesn't stop there, because once you've returned from either of those two paths, you head off as a group with whichever other character you picked up in the first episode (Lukas for me) to find the last member of the Order of the Stone, Soren the Architect. This path also follows a relatively fast-paced action sequence, but falls a little short with its sub-par cliffhanger. It's only episode two, but the weird events surrounding the Order of the Stone and exactly what they're going to do to stop this crazy Wither Storm seems as though it will never be resolved.
While Mojang may in fact be too busy at the moment to make that a reality, let's be very clear about something. If Nintendo had really wanted Minecraft on the Wii U, it would be in the works or out already. That's not to say it would be easy to make happen, but ultimately they are the kind of company that can make something like that a reality if they really wanted to.
The difficult thing in talking about and analyzing what makes Minecraft's multiplayer so great is that there is no definitive multiplayer experience. Some people use it to work together and create impossibly detailed and beautiful creations, while others create game within a game scenarios to compete in, and some still are perfectly satisfied with running around and killing each other. Like just about every other aspect of the game then, the experience here isn't one pre-determined by the developers, but rather one that is uniquely yours based on who you are, whom you play with, and the extent of your combined imaginations.
Yet Nintendo ignores it, just as they have ignored pleas from their own fans regarding everything from addressing many of the issues already noted, to making their own historically great back catalog more readily available. Yes they've done things like release Earthbound on the Wii U, but only after years and years of remaining silent on the subject while fans begged and pleaded for even an acknowledgment of the damn thing.
Galactic Café went a step further with their Stanley Parable demo, creating new content not just for the free demo on steam, but for various venues that showcased the game. While all offered a short bit of meta-commentary on the nature of demos (pretty much the only way you could convey the core concept of the game without spoiling it), each was tailored to a specific scenario. The demo at PAX took some lighthearted jabs at Octodad (which was just across from it in the Indie Megabooth), and at one point made the player stand up and apologize to the audience for playing the demo so poorly. A special version made for Game Grumps addressed Danny and Ross by name. In this case, the demos were an unbridled success, building enough hype for the small indie game to garner 100,000 sales in 3 days.
No game has done what Minecraft has done. No game even remotely associated with the "sandbox" element has realized that truest sense of childlike wonder and exploration that Notch and his friends at Mojang have achieved. They’ve changed how you can approach the fundamental necessities of a game, while fueling a sense of personal freedom that no game has ever reached. It’s clear that Minecraft is a commercial success and a cultural milestone, but if as gamers you look into what Minecraft is and what it does, you realize that it’s not just about goofy blocks of sands, hissing Creepers or that square sun rising over the horizon. Minecraft is a landmark title in games as a whole; it does things that no game before it has achieved, at least not at this level. Making a game a work of art isn’t about flowering up the graphics or enlisting big-name voice talent; it’s about using what you can only do in a game and making something fresh and new. It’s about taking these distinctive qualities of the gaming medium and breaking free of convention. Minecraft does all that. In spades. If we’re to show the blocky PokéMon world that games can do amazing things, things that film or TV can never hope to ever achieve, Notch’s indie-game-that-could is our best weapon. Plainly and simply, Minecraft is a work of art.