Minecraft Dungeons II Review: Bigger, Smarter, Still Buggy

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This Minecraft Dungeons II review comes from someone who liked the first game and wanted a lot more from it. Mojang Studios and Double Eleven released the sequel on September 29, 2026 for PC, Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch and Switch 2. It trades the old mission map for a connected Overworld plus the Sift, a brand-new Minecraft dimension. I've only just started playing: I picked it up the day it launched, and this review covers my first sessions.

Minecraft Dungeons II is a friendly, loot-heavy action RPG that anyone in the house can pick up in minutes. It also hides far more build depth than the original ever did. My first hours point to the best entry-level co-op dungeon crawler I've played in years, and they've already handed me a few bugs a Mojang game shouldn't ship with.

Below, you'll find my take on the open world, the Sift, the gear system, co-op and what waits after the credits, plus a straight answer on whether to buy it.

Minecraft Dungeons II Review Summary

• Minecraft Dungeons II is a clear step up from the first game, with an open Overworld, a jump button and a whole new dimension to fight through.

• Builds now mix four armor pieces, up to three talismans, artifacts that run on souls and reusable enchantment books.

• Minecraft Dungeons II co-op takes up to four players online, on one couch or both at once, with full crossplay on dedicated servers.

• The Sift is an early look at the dimension Mojang is adding to Minecraft in 2027.

• After the credits come Soul Storms, side quests and repeatable bosses, and I haven't reached that part yet.

• Bugs already broke a couple of my quests in my first sessions.

• Buy it for co-op with friends or kids. Solo loot grinders can wait for the first patches.

The Open Overworld Fixes The Formula

The biggest change is the map itself. The first game sent me from a menu to a level and back again, over and over. Minecraft Dungeons II drops that loop for one connected Overworld, and I can walk from a village to my next objective with no loading screen in between. The only loads I ran into came from stepping in and out of the Sift. Minecart stations cover fast travel, and I rode them constantly on my way back to the vendors.

A jump button sounds like a small addition, and it changed how I play more than any new weapon. The original kept me glued to the ground, so every ledge was a wall. Here I hop between platforms, reach routes above the main path and find chests tucked behind waterfalls. Swinging mid-jump turns into a heavier jump attack that catches every enemy in range. Within my first session, dropping onto a pack from a ledge had become my opener for every big fight.

Side paths pay off almost every time. Detours in the Rainy Plains or the Frozen Highlands kept leading me to a hidden ledge, a miniboss or a chest full of gear. Enemies scale to my level, so no detour ever felt like wasted time. I barely ran into anything resembling a puzzle, and the set pieces rarely made me stop and stare.

The Sift Is The Real Star

The Sift is the first new Minecraft dimension in more than fourteen years. Mojang has confirmed it comes to Minecraft Java and Bedrock in 2027. Minecraft Dungeons II is the first place anyone can walk around in it. Rifts scattered across the Overworld pull me through, and the color shift hits straight away. The Overworld is greens and grays, and the Sift glows in pink, blue and purple, with pale lakes and plants I had no name for.

My first stop, the Meadow, felt stranger than the Nether ever did to me, and the Carapace is still waiting further in. Not everything there wants a fight, since the Sift has friendly mobs alongside the hostile ones. Sift rifts work as side dungeons, and the one I cleared was the highlight of my first night.

Leading the villains is the Illager High Council, a trio made up of the Prime Enchanter, the Supreme Evoker and the Grand Illusioner. They found the Sift and came back with soul blocks, and Mojang's launch announcement ties them to the rifts, the mobs charged with strange energy and the sculk spreading across the Overworld. Their army mixes familiar Vindicators and Pillagers with soul-corrupted creepers, skeletons and spiders. The setup works for a family adventure, and the villagers I was protecting got more to do than stand around. The plot moves along lightly so far, and I'm not yet convinced the council will get enough screen time.

Gear Builds Finally Have Real Depth

Minecraft Dungeons II keeps the classless design of the first game, so my gear decides who I am. Armor now splits into four pieces: helmet, chestplate, leggings and boots. Each one carries its own perks, so I stopped wearing whatever had the highest number and started pairing a health-regen chestplate with boots that fed my ranged damage. Melee picks run from swords and daggers to hammers, claws and battle staffs, and bows and crossbows cover range.

Talismans are the new layer. I can equip up to three, and they add passives like extra health, a bigger quiver or a companion that fights beside me. Artifacts are the active side, and they run on souls I pull from defeated enemies. The build I've settled on so far is a fire build, with Fire Aspect on my melee weapon, piercing on my bow and a fire artifact for crowded fights. For the first time in this series, my character felt designed on purpose.

Three villagers run the whole upgrade loop. The Blacksmith raises gear stats, the Enchantsmith applies enchantments and the Merchant rolls fresh items. Enchantment books are reusable, and pulling an enchantment off an item leaves the item intact, so I could move a favorite perk onto a new weapon without losing anything. Books are scarce this early, so my wilder experiments are on hold for now.

The loot pace works against all of this. Drops come so often that I spent a chunk of every session in menus, comparing near-identical boots. Emeralds also have a hard cap, and at the rate I'm picking them up I'll hit it soon. The game also barely explains what souls do, so my early artifact use was mostly guesswork.

Co-op And Crossplay Just Work

Minecraft Dungeons II co-op takes up to four players, online, on one couch or a mix of both. The mixed option is new to the series: two of us on one TV and a friend online joined the same session. Crossplay covers every platform, and an eight-character party code let a friend on PS5 join my PC game without any friend-list setup. Mojang moved co-op onto dedicated servers, and I haven't lost a session to a dropped connection yet.

Matchmaking fills the empty seats. It groups players by quest progress, region and power level, and it can drop you into a game already in progress. I tried it once my friends logged off, and the wait was short. Linking a Microsoft account keeps a hero's progress across devices, so the same character moved from my PC to a friend's Xbox with no fuss.

Online and offline heroes stay separate, so the character I built in couch co-op couldn't follow me online. With four players and every artifact firing, the screen turns into a fireworks show, and I lost track of my own hero more than once. For mixed-age groups, I haven't played a smoother co-op action RPG.

Soul Storms Wait After The Credits

I haven't seen the credits yet, so the Minecraft Dungeons II endgame is still ahead of me. Once the story wraps up, the map fills with Soul Storms, timed events in random spots with tougher mobs and storm towers to tear down for better loot and upgrade materials. On paper, it's the right home for the fire build I'm putting together. It's also a single loop, and I can already picture it repeating after a few runs.

The rest of the post-story content is cleanup: leftover side quests, Sift rifts left unfinished and bosses you can fight again. Scarce enchantment books suggest the builds only open up fully in that stretch, which is where I'm heading next. Will that loop hold up for a long grind? I can't say yet, and anyone who buys action RPGs for the endgame should wait for that answer.

Bugs showed up much earlier. A couple of my quests broke and needed a full game restart, and I lost a little progress each time. My hero got stuck on scenery now and then, and a key vanished from my inventory in the middle of a dungeon. None of it ruined the game for me. A bug that eats progress is still hard to forgive in a game built around progress.

Is Minecraft Dungeons II Worth Buying Right Now?

Yes, if you have someone to play it with. Parents with younger kids and groups of friends get the most from it, since couch co-op and crossplay cover almost every way a group can sit down together. The game is on every console it launched on, and Steam sells it in Standard and Deluxe editions.

The launch build is fun and unfinished in equal measure. The open world and the gear system already hold up, and neither depends on a patch. The broken quests need one, and the post-story loop is still untested on my side. Minecraft fans also get a first look at a dimension the main game won't see until 2027.

Solo players who live in action RPGs should wait. The endgame is still an unknown, and a quest bug hits harder when nobody is there to laugh it off. Give it a patch or two and pick it up on a sale.

FAQs About Minecraft Dungeons II

Final Words

Minecraft Dungeons II feels like two games sharing a box. One is a warm, generous co-op adventure that I'd hand to anyone, from a seven-year-old cousin to a friend who has never touched an action RPG. The other is a loot game with launch bugs and an endgame I still have to put to the test.

Talisman slots stuck with me most. They turned a simple loot game into one where I plan builds between sessions, even on days I don't get to play. If Mojang and Double Eleven add more to chase, that system has room to carry a much longer grind.

The Sift gives Minecraft fans a reason to play even if loot games leave them cold. It's a playable preview of the first new dimension coming to Minecraft in over a decade, and fans will want to see it before 2027. Keep an eye on the first patches, since they decide how long this one stays on my drive.

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