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The announcement of a new Minecraft game would usually be something that came with a great deal of fanfare and publicity, which makes the strange, quiet appearance of Minecraft Blast quite peculiar. This mobile project, which is apparently a collab between Minecraft developers Mojang and Candy Crush creators King, has only come to anyone’s attention after it appeared on the Apple store for people in Malaysia. Huh.
When Microsoft so controversially bought Activision in 2023, understandably most of our attention was on how this seemingly monopolistic move meant the Windows and Xbox owner now controlled everything from Call of Duty to World of Warcraft. But less focused on was the simultaneous acquisition of King, which Activision Blizzard had previously bought for $5.9 billion. That’s now suddenly being brought into the light with the sudden announcement of Minecraft Blast, a match-3 game in the manner of King’s mega-hit Candy Crush Saga, but based around the blocky world of Minecraft.
Oh yes, because as hard as we might try to forget, Microsoft owns Minecraft too, after that 2014 purchase for $2.5 billion. And if I’m a besuited Microsoft exec, and I’m looking at the miniature model on my table of all the empires I own, at a certain point I’m definitely going to want to see if there’s money in combining them together.
The result on this occasion is a free-to-play matching puzzle game set in Minecraft‘s world with Minecraft‘s art and tools. You have a sort of 3D mini-world in which you can craft, but to get the “energy” to do this you need to play the block-tapping 2D puzzle game. Here you tap matching groups of colored blocks to break those around them, revealing TNT and fireworks and so on as you attempt to clear a level. Although, not having played it myself and given the scant information on the game’s site, it’s hard to provide you with much clearer guidance.
You might imagine a video of someone playing the game would be more informative, but Minecraft YouTuber PatarHD’s footage is so frustratingly edited and so painfully scripted that it feels like the world’s most confusing ad.
Minecraft Blast is currently being playtested in Malaysia alone, and apparently this test will only last for a week or two. But Microsoft promises more locations and longer tests will be coming soon, stating that right now it is in “extremely early days with this project,” and that it plans “to start rolling out small, limited-run tests in select markets to help us gather early feedback and involve our community from the start.”
However, in the YouTube video above, PatarHD claims that if you have an iOS device, you can just change your region to Malaysia and download the app now.
It looks like the full version of Minecraft Blast is still a fair way off. Although given it’s F2P, perhaps we can enjoy the wait.
