'Minecraft 2' Is Not Happening

Minecraft is the most successful video game in modernity, and boasts the highest sales of pretty much any game ever released, except for Tetris. Minecraft still enjoys roughly 90 million active monthly users (more than Fortnite), and the platform is still seeing aggressive growth. Considering the game came out almost a decade ago, you'd think we're due for a sequel announcement any time now, right? Wrong.

Minecraft head Helen Chiang thinks that's the wrong move. "I really don't think that makes sense for 'Minecraft,' given the community," Chiang said in an interview with Business Insider. "It's something that always fractures the community." Minecraft has taken great strides recently to keep players together, and the folks at Mojang have been champions of cross-play. Heck, one of the most surreal experiences a gamer can have right now is unlocking Xbox achievements by playing Minecraft on their Nintendo Switch.

Mojang and Microsoft believe that launching a Minecraft sequel would destroy the community that they've been building up and bringing together since 2011, and they're probably right. Take any Call of Duty, for example. There are two things that always split the online community: the launch of paid DLC maps, and the next Call of Duty. Inevitably whenever new maps or a new game come along, some friends will move on, and some friends will stay behind. Mojang doesn't want that to happen to Minecraft, so you can expect more updates instead of a sequel.

There are new games to look forward to in the Minecraft universe, though. This weekend at "Minecon Earth," Mojang revealed Minecraft: Dungeons. This is being touted as a kind of Diablo-like dungeon crawler set in the Minecraft universe.

"I would say that it's a distilled version of 'Minecraft' in the sense that we wanted to focus on making sure that we made the dungeon crawler part as good as possible," Mojang creative lead Jens Bergentsen told Business Insider. "Building in the game is something that we've talked about a lot, but we were concerned that it would distract from what the game was about. So in 'Minecraft: Dungeons,' it's strictly an adventure game with a story attached to it."

It's a huge departure from what fans know and love, but that's the point. Anyone who wants to play Minecraft will still have Minecraft to play, and Dungeons will offer something completely original. For those of you craving novelty, you can look forward to plenty of updates in the future. If all you want is a Minecraft 2, you may want to craft yourself a really comfortable waiting room to hang out in.