Minecraft Dungeons II launches September 29, 2026, priced at $29.99 and included in Xbox Game Pass on day one. Mojang Studios confirmed the date at the Xbox Games Showcase on June 7, releasing the first extended gameplay footage alongside a villain reveal and pre-order details for early buyers.
How the Date Leaked Before the Showcase
The official confirmation arrived at the Xbox Games Showcase on June 7, but the date was already public two days before. On June 5, a Nintendo eShop product page for Minecraft Dungeons II went live ahead of schedule. Gaming deals curator Wario64 captured and shared screenshots before Nintendo pulled the listing. Those screenshots confirmed September 29, 2026 as the release date, $29.99 as the retail price, and included early plot text describing the campaign as sending players across two worlds to stop a new evil causing chaos.
On June 7, the Xbox Games Showcase delivered the formal announcement, with Mojang’s official gameplay reveal at Minecraft.net confirming everything from the eShop listing and adding an animated gameplay trailer, the pre-order bonus breakdown, and a full picture of the co-op structure. The June 5 slip changed nothing about what the studio was planning to ship.
Mojang first confirmed Minecraft Dungeons II at Minecraft Live on March 21, 2026, with a teaser trailer and a Fall 2026 window. No price, no firm date. The Xbox Games Showcase closed that gap roughly three months later. The original Minecraft Dungeons ran a considerably longer path from announcement to launch: confirmed at MineCon on September 28, 2018, it didn’t release until May 26, 2020, a gap of about 20 months. The sequel is moving on a significantly tighter window.
The pre-order, per the Minecraft Dungeons II product page, opened June 6 at participating retailers and runs until noon Pacific time on September 28. Players who commit before that cutoff receive two hero skins, the Twisted cape, and the Twisted Chicken pet. The offer is capped at one per person or account and varies by region, platform, and retailer.
Twenty-Five Million Players, Then a Pause
Minecraft Dungeons launched May 26, 2020, across Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Windows, and Xbox One, with Xbox Game Pass access from day one. Mojang and Double Eleven, the UK studio that co-developed the original, tracked three publicly disclosed player milestones across the game’s active life, per Game Developer’s coverage of the studio’s September 2023 development conclusion:
- 25 million unique players by September 2023
- 15 million players by February 2022
- 10 million players by February 2021, nine months after launch
Our team has now moved on to new projects that continue to explore experiences in the Minecraft universe.
Mojang published those words on September 28, 2023, in the studio’s development conclusion announcement, the same day it disclosed the 25 million figure and confirmed that active development of Minecraft Dungeons had ended. Double Eleven and Mojang are back together on the sequel, which Mojang first announced approximately two and a half years after that statement.
Version 1.17, the final content update, shipped in November 2022. Post-DLC, the team kept the game running through seasonal modes, including the Tower, a rotating roguelike single-player mode added in late 2021. No new main missions or DLC packs followed. On Steam, where Minecraft Dungeons launched in September 2021 more than a year after its console debut, the game carries a Very Positive rating across approximately 16,000 reviews, per Steambase data.
The original Minecraft Dungeons Hero Edition launched at $29.99 in 2020. The sequel matches that price six years later, when several major first-party releases carry $70 tags.
The Twisted Warden and Two Worlds Under Threat
Mojang gave the first look at the new villain in a late May 2026 bonus Minecraft Live broadcast segment, about six weeks before the Xbox Showcase. GamingTrend’s coverage of the June 7 reveal identifies the primary antagonist as the Twisted Warden, described as slow but formidable and tied to the Deep Dark biome. The original Warden, added to Minecraft’s base game in the 2022 Wild Update, is sightless and hunts by detecting sound and vibrations, making it among the most feared hostile mobs in the franchise. Minecraft Dungeons II’s villain is a corrupted variant of that creature. Where the first game sent players against the Arch-Illager and his army of pillagers, the sequel centers its threat on a mob drawn from one of Minecraft’s most recent and dangerous additions.
Past the Overworld’s biomes, the conflict extends to a second world. Nintendo eShop listing text captured before the page was pulled described the mission as stopping a new evil spreading chaos across two worlds. The animated trailer released June 7 supports that scope: an activated Ancient City portal appears in the footage, pointing toward a dimension the original game never reached. Biome names from the same eShop listing before it went offline (including Honeycomb Fields, Desert, Mountain, and Icelagoon) suggest a wider geography than the first game, which covered Overworld biomes in its base campaign and added the Nether and the End through paid DLC expansions.
A companion novel, Minecraft Dungeons II: The Rift, written by Caleb Zane Huett and published by Random House Worlds, is scheduled for September 1, 2026, four weeks before the game itself.
The Gear Loop Gets Wider
Minecraft Dungeons placed players in a cycle: fight enemies, collect gear, build a stronger hero, return to harder missions. The sequel keeps that structure and expands the item categories available. Mojang confirmed five gear families at the June 7 gameplay reveal:
- Weapons: melee and ranged options for direct combat
- Armor: defensive sets that change how much punishment a hero survives
- Artifacts: active-use items with cooldown-based abilities, returning from Minecraft Dungeons
- Talismans: a new passive-buff category with a dedicated slot, absent from the original game
- Legendary gear: rare drops with elevated base stats targeting endgame difficulty runs
In Minecraft Dungeons, passive buffs came entirely from the armor piece chosen; there was no separate slot for persistent effects. The talisman category adds that independent layer, separating passive decisions from armor choices and giving players additional combinations to build around.
The difficulty system stays mission-by-mission. Minecraft Dungeons let players adjust challenge per mission, with harder settings yielding better loot, a design inherited from the action role-playing game genre. The sequel carries that architecture forward. A solo player on a first run has a different gear trajectory than a four-player group pushing maximum difficulty for endgame drops.
Four-player co-op runs in both online and couch formats. On Nintendo Switch and Switch 2, the game also supports four players on a single console via local splitscreen, and two separate systems through local wireless, without requiring an online subscription for those local modes.
Platforms, Price, and Game Pass
Minecraft Dungeons II launches simultaneously across five platforms on September 29, 2026.
| Platform | Version | Retail price | Included in Game Pass |
|---|---|---|---|
| Xbox Series X|S | Xbox Play Anywhere | $29.99 | Yes, day one |
| Windows PC (Microsoft Store / Steam) | Xbox Play Anywhere / Standard | $29.99 | Yes, day one |
| PlayStation 5 | Standard | $29.99 | No |
| Nintendo Switch | Standard | $29.99 | No |
| Nintendo Switch 2 | Standard | $29.99 | No |
Xbox Play Anywhere means a single Microsoft Store purchase covers both Xbox Series X|S and Windows PC, with shared save data and achievements. Game Pass subscribers on those two platforms can download the game on launch day at no extra cost. On Steam, the game is a standard purchase without the Play Anywhere cross-buy; it doesn’t include shared Xbox and PC benefits.
No last-generation consoles appear on the confirmed platform list. Minecraft Dungeons launched on Xbox One and PS4 in 2020 and received an Xbox Series X|S performance patch later; the sequel arrives on current hardware only.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Minecraft Dungeons II on Xbox Game Pass?
Yes. Minecraft Dungeons II is included in Xbox Game Pass on day one for subscribers on Xbox Series X|S and Windows PC. PlayStation and Nintendo platform players are not covered by Game Pass and pay the full retail price.
What Platforms Is Minecraft Dungeons II Available On?
Minecraft Dungeons II launches on Xbox Series X|S, Windows PC via the Microsoft Store and Steam, PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch, and Nintendo Switch 2. The Xbox and PC Microsoft Store versions share a single purchase as an Xbox Play Anywhere title.
What Are the Minecraft Dungeons II Pre-Order Bonuses?
Players who pre-order before September 28, 2026, at noon Pacific time receive two hero skins, the Twisted cape, and the Twisted Chicken pet. The offer runs from June 6, 2026, at participating retailers and is limited to one per person or account. Availability varies by region, platform, and retailer.
Do I Need a Subscription to Play Online Co-op?
Yes. Online co-op on consoles requires a platform-specific subscription: Xbox Game Pass Ultimate or Xbox Live Gold on Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation Plus on PS5, and Nintendo Switch Online for Switch and Switch 2. Couch co-op and local wireless play do not require a subscription.
Pre-orders close at noon Pacific on September 28, one day before Mojang opens the fight with the Twisted Warden.
