If you are like the rest of us, then you’ve spent a decent chunk of your life in Minecraft. You’ve used it to create elaborate castles with mage’s towers, roller coasters, waterfalls, and huge walk-in freezers. And, while surveying the land you’ve conquered and tamed from your highest throne room, you’ve completely lost interest in it. An uncomfortable amount of dynamite later, you log off and walk away.
If you’re like most of us, though, you end up coming back. You always come back some time or another. And here’s why.
There’s Always Something New
There’s hardly a game out there that updates as regularly and consistently as Minecraft. And of those that do, the vast majority require a monthly subscription. Since its inception, Minecraft has gone from a neat, little block-stacking game to a behemoth, firework extravaganza.
What this means is that there will always be something new. While you’re away, the game is constantly evolving and growing. New items and structures are added in. New flora and fauna spread across the land. New materials are discovered. Given enough time, the game worlds end up looking alien and overwhelming.
This works two-fold. First, new things are fun. You’ll always want to try them out. Second, after a big enough update, you have to generate a new seed to take advantage of it. This means starting back at 0. This also means leaving your dynamite and lava-covered wreckage behind. And when you start up a new game, your goal is always to build it bigger and better than before. (And if you need a new seed to do that, you should check out our collection of the best Minecraft seeds around.)
The Possibilities are Endless
Maybe the new updates aren’t enough to bring you back. The memories of your towering citadel leave you satisfied. You have no desire to painstakingly grind for all the materials you need to do it all over again. Regardless, you’ll still end up coming back. You’ll do it with a smile on your face too. All because no one ever told you that you have to build.
Minecraft is so open that you can pretty much play how you want. You can craft a boat and sword and take to the open seas if you please, raiding every village you find. You can explore the land and seas for the perfect sight. You can even be a crazy hermit and dig into the deepest mines to become one with the skeletons. Want a mile-wide glass home on the bottom of the ocean? Do it.
No matter how you played the time before, you can always play a different way next time. Minecraft can be whatever you want it to be. That’s how it’s designed. When one way to play gets boring, just move on to the next. Don’t worry, your 1:1 scale replica of the Red Keep will still be there (mostly) when you return.
It’s a Palette Cleanser
Often, the best time to play Minecraft is when you finish a different game. Most other games, especially AAA titles, have a lot of nuances and specifics to learn. By the time you wrap up a playthrough of Fallout 4, your mind is focused on perks, VATS, and supermutants. There’s no better way to wash that away than some Minecraft time.
Don’t get me wrong, Minecraft can be plenty complicated. It’s just complicated in a different way — like how binary is complicated. Regardless of how complex binary coding has to be in order to actually mean something, it is extremely simple at its base. The same exact thing works in Minecraft. You have to be really in-depth to make a redstone calculator, but the basic rules that govern redstone are simple and exact.
That’s why Minecraft is perfect to play between games. The simplicity of the game helps transition your thoughts away. This helps clear your mind for the next one. That way, hopefully you won’t struggle around the pits of Hell in Doom, hopelessly slapping the VATS key.
All Your Friends are Playing It
Let’s face it, everyone you know is still playing Minecraft — even if it’s not all at the same time. There will always be some friend or family member diving into a server to recreate the entire map of the first Legend of Zelda. What are you going to do? Miss out on that? If you do, that’s fine…but more of your friends are going to join in until you do.
Humans are social creatures. We don’t like to be left out of things. It works the same with pretty much any game. When your friends buy the newest World of Warcraft expansion, you sigh and renew your subscription. And since Minecraft is a game everyone returns to over and over again, you can expect to see this happen a lot over the years.
Each of these pulls is a good thing.
They all work together to make Minecraft a great experience. The open-world nature, with its simplicity and constant updates, keep it relevant many years after it’s first released. So it’s not a bad thing that it keeps bringing us back time and again. It’s just inevitable.
