Minecraft Dungeons Launcher Shuts Down As Unified Launcher Rolls Out
Minecraft has grown considerably from its humble voxel beginnings and has branched out into different platforms and even genres. Some, like the Minecraft Earth AR game, didn't really take off but others like the hack-and-slash Minecraft Dungeons have stuck around so far. Mojang, under the auspices of Microsoft, has been trying to consolidate all of these under a single roof and one of its latest is to move Dungeons players to a new, unified Minecraft launcher.
Minecraft Dungeons naturally launched last year as a somewhat separate entity from Minecraft. After all, the two only shared a similar theme but may not even share the same user accounts. As Mojang starts to move Minecraft to a single Microsoft account, it might have made sense to also move Minecraft Dungeons to a single launcher as well.
The new Unified Launcher will now be the only way Dungeons gamers can run the game and they can also use that launcher to play Minecraft: Java Edition if they have that, too. Other than having to log into the game again on the new launcher, nothing else should change for gamers as the new launcher uses the same files and save games as the old one.
Listen up Windows players! From today, we've switched to our unified launcher so you can fire up Dungeons and Minecraft: Java Edition from the same place – handy, right?
Check out our FAQs for full details to guide you through the upgrade process:
↣ https://t.co/StslMNCOvU ↢ pic.twitter.com/e0pMZQBIy8
— Minecraft Dungeons (@dungeonsgame) January 18, 2021
There are, however, some caveats, particularly with account juggling. Those with Minecraft: Java Editions that still use Mojang accounts will have to log in and out of it if they want to switch between that and Minecraft Dungeons, which uses a Microsoft account instead. That said, that might soon be moot because Mojang is pushing even Java Edition players to Microsoft accounts this year.
Despite the name, the Unified Launcher still doesn't really have a unified experience across all Minecraft editions. Mojang notes that since the Microsoft Store for Windows and Xbox handles downloading and updating the game anyway, those who bought Minecraft or Minecraft Dungeons there don't have to use the Unified Launcher.