Wait, how did Lego beat Minecraft to making a city builder?

Left: Lego Skylines, Right: Minecraft (Image credit: Mojang, Lego)

Lego announced a city builder called Lego Skylines last month and we all collectively said: "Oh yeah, duh." A landscape of colorful bricks snapping together into a metropolis from the godlike perspective we already view our real life Legos just makes sense.

Hold on, what about the brand I affectionately refer to as "digital Legos"? Minecraft should by rights have spawned a city building spinoff by now. How were Lego and Mojang not competing over this category of PC players years ago?

Minecraft as a city builder:

Minecraft 1.20 - Steve celebrates his new camel pal

It makes sense

Templated structures like villages, temples, and fortresses are already a staple in vanilla Minecraft
Villagers: we love to exploit 'em and give them jobs
Minecraft players love to build, why not cities?
The first generation of Minecraft players (me) are Old™ now and we can appreciate slower, strategic games
There are Minecraft mods for this, so players definitely like the idea
Minecraft already has several spinoffs in other genres (Minecraft Dungeons and Minecraft Legends)

Minecraft - Alex holds a telescope

Maybe it doesn't?

This is so obvious that maybe Mojang has prototyped one internally and it just wasn't great
Maybe it's on the to-do list but Mojang hasn't found a partner studio to work on it
Minecraft spinoffs have a mixed track record. Minecraft Dungeons is good but Minecraft Legends is not.

Lauren Morton

I am totally in favour of the concept. Minecraft villages are just cool as heck and I want to build at that scale instead of block by block:

Minecraft plains village

Minecraft forest village spawned on top of a lake

Minecraft - a desert village spawned on top of a lake

Minecraft savannah village

Minecrfat village on top of a plains plateau

Minecraft ice tundra village surrounded by ice spikes

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Lauren has been writing for PC Gamer since she went hunting for the cryptid Dark Souls fashion police in 2017. She joined the PCG staff in 2021, now serving as self-appointed chief cozy games and farmlife sim enjoyer. Her career originally began in game development and she remains fascinated by how games tick in the modding and speedrunning scenes. She likes long fantasy books, longer RPGs, can't stop playing co-op survival crafting games, and has spent a number of hours she refuses to count building houses in The Sims games for over 20 years.