Microsoft have posted a new video for their upcoming Diablo-esque dungeon-crawler set in the Minecraft universe, Minecraft Dungeons. The developer diary focuses on the game’s environments, which are obviously reminiscent of the original Minecraft, but obviously taken towards a darker setting.
As detailed in the video, game designer Pontus Hammarberg talks about how the levels in Minecraft Dungeons are procedurally generated. “The way that we’ve married procedural generation with rewarding gameplay is to design sort of like puzzle pieces that we can then tell the engine to arrange for us, either in a way that we specifically tell us to do, or in a way that is more random.”
However, unlike Diablo (which has used procedurally-generated environments since the beginning), the randomness isn’t quite to that extent. “What procedural generation doesn’t take into account is pacing, what kind of encounters you will have, how the level plays in general, so you have to strike a good mix between procedural generation and crafted content,” says level designer Christian Berg.
Minecraft Dungeons is set for release on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Switch, and PC April 2020.