Sorry everyone, Minecraft 2 is cancelled, and it might be our fault

Minecraft creator Markus "Notch" Persson caused a bit of a stir over the weekend when he "basically announced Minecraft 2," after the vast majority of respondents to a poll on X said that's what they want him to make. Not literally Minecraft 2, of course—he's not allowed to do that—but a "spiritual successor," similar to the original. He sounded completely serious about it at the time, but apparently he's now changed his mind.

"Talked to the fellas at the office," Persson tweeted earlier this week (via GamesRadar). "Looks like we're making Levers and Chests! Tipping point was PC Gamer saying it seemed interesting, lol. Yeah I still love PC Gamer."

So if you were looking forward to Minecraft 2, well, sorry about that. But in our defense, this wasn't entirely our doing. Persson didn't sound overly enthusiastic about doing another Minecraft-like in the poll that started all this business, saying that spiritual successors to popular games are often "washed up" and "tragic," and he repeated that sentiment in response to a user on X who said they felt "betrayed" by the decision to change direction.

"Trust me, the spiritual successor would be way less fun than the dungeon roguelike," he wrote. "They're always kinda sad nostalgia dumps."

The dungeon roguelike in question is Levers and Chests, which Persson began teasing in 2024 alongside his new BitShift Entertainment studio. And frankly, I think it does look more interesting than a Minecraft Redux sort of thing—although to be fair, I say that as someone who's more inclined to go for that sort of thing than most anyway. Persson actually dropped a shout-out to one of my favorites of the genre, saying he hopes Levers and Chests "will be at least half as fun as Legend of Grimrock 2."

As for Minecraft 2, "You'll have to ask Microsoft about that one," Persson wrote, reminding everyone that the game has been out of his hands for a decade now. I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for it to happen, though—Minecraft is still a monster—and even if it does someday, Persson almost certainly won't be involved: He was excluded from celebrations of Minecraft's 10^th anniversary in 2019 over his "comments and opinions," a reference to multiple transphobic and anti-feminist statements made by Persson in the years following the sale of Mojang to Microsoft.