What did you just say? "Minecraft is a sandbox game that babies can play with their foreheads"? Ha. Shows how much you know. Path of Exile co-creator Chris Wilson says that, contrary to what some might think, Minecraft is a pretty intense action role-playing game experience.
Minecraft's survival mode might be "more hardcore than even Path of Exile," Wilson says in a new YouTube video exploring the topic, because if you drop items near lava after dying, those items are destroyed by the heat. Also, there's fishing. Are you convinced yet?
"It turns out that, regardless of where I go, everything in my life is going to look like Diablo 2 or Path of Exile if I stare at it hard enough," Wilson – who exited Path of Exile studio Grinding Gear Games in 2023 after helping found it in 2006 – admits. Though, he dreamed of escaping his ARPG history when he first picked up Minecraft.
"Action RPGs are a fun niche, but I needed to branch out to try something mass market," he remembers thinking. "There's no way that this pixelated kids' game with cute characters, a Jack Black movie, and a trillion views on YouTube is actually a hardcore action RPG in disguise, right?"
WRONG. "Minecraft is all real time," Wilson argues. "Progression in Minecraft is also very item-centric. [...] They've got item enchantments, basically mods from a Diablo or Path of Exile-like game."
And, perhaps the most damning evidence of all, "Minecraft is no exception" in having "extensive fishing systems."
"I find it interesting that, at 42 years of age, I'm sitting there memorizing how, if you fish during a thunderstorm in Minecraft, it will give a 20% faster fishing chance," Wilson says. I also find that interesting.
