Highlights
- Minecraft's popularity has resulted in numerous clone games that aim to capture its style and gameplay.
- Mobile games like Pocket Craft and Minebuild successfully brought elements of Minecraft to handheld devices.
- Games like Cube World and Minetest have their own unique twists on the Minecraft formula, such as RPG elements and open-source gameplay.
Gaming “clones” are a familiar concept to many players, since a popular formula for a game can easily be reworked and changed enough to release a different but similar game that could garner interest solely off being similar in style to a popular game. This has been a familiar concept in the industry for years and there are few games that receive quite as many clones as Minecraft has managed.
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Since being released officially in 2011, Minecraft has managed to become one of the highest-grossing video games of all time, never waning in popularity over that time and generating enough interest to have several spin-off games, endless merchandise, and now even a big-budget movie in development with names like Jason Momoa attached. However, being a beloved game that has to be paid for, there have been quite a number of clone games, particularly free ones that generate interest for their similarities without any costs being directly involved in getting to play.
Updated on February 5, 2024, by Chris Harkin: Minecraft is a hugely popular game, and while the height of its popularity may be behind it now within the gaming sphere, there is still potential for more "clones" of the game to be created, especially with the live-action movie currently under development. While clone may sound like a negative term, it is simply being used to denote a significant level of similarity between many of these games and Minecraft, which was such a unique game when it was released that it has helped create something of a sub-genre of survival games with a distinctive style to them.
Despite the use of the term "clone", the intent here is to share fun games similar to Minecraft rather than criticize the following titles.
10 Pocket Craft: Survivor Mode
Metacritic Score: N/A
- Release Date: May, 2014
- Developer: Bunbo Games
- Platforms: iOS
Pocketcraft took advantage of one of the simplest ideas that could improve the accessibility of Minecraft in earlier days, which was putting it on a mobile phone. Mobile gaming has varied in popularity over the years, but when Pocketcraft was first released, it was a huge deal, and it was highly praised for many of the features being so well transferred across to a mobile game.
The goal was to build shelters and gather materials to stay alive at night, which was when zombies would be released to try and attack the player. The focus was more heavily on survival aspects copied from Minecraft than any of the sandbox aspects which Minecraft is also well-known for championing.
9 Minebuild: Worldcraft Survival
Metacritic Score: N/A
- Release Date: June, 2015
- Developer: Pixelbox Studio
- Platforms: Android
Another mobile game that gained popularity due to the great way it transferred some features of Minecraft into a handheld format, Minebuild has one of the closest names to Minecraft out of any similar game, and it focused much more on the sandbox style and crafting as opposed to other Minecraft clones, which more commonly focused on survival and combat aspects.
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Minebuild gave players a lot of freedom for a mobile game and was considered one of the better Minecraft clones for mobiles, a format that became less popular after Minecraft itself hit app stores on mobile devices in late 2014. Despite coming out after this, in 2015, Minebuild still gained a sizable following for some features that Minecraft didn’t manage on its initial mobile release.
8 Cube World
Metacritic Score: N/A
- Release Date: July 2nd, 2013
- Developer: Picroma
- Platforms: Microsoft Windows
Cube World is a great representation of what Minecraft would look like if it was a proper RPG. With pixel graphics and a world that looks similarly blocky to the original, Cube World is a fun, brightly-colored take on games like Minecraft which was well-admired on release in 2013, though this was an alpha release, the full one didn’t end up happening until 2019.
Providing a great open world and character creation which helped to set it apart from Minecraft, Cube World focused more on the combat aspects of Minecraft’s charm more than anything else. This allowed them to garner a great amount of support for their beautiful world, filled with overworld castles and underground dungeons where players could battle with all manner of creatures.
7 Minetest
Metacritic Score: N/A
- Release Date: November 2nd, 2010
- Developer: Minetest Team
- Platforms: Microsoft Windows, macOS, FreeBSD, Android
A game that appears to be very similar to Minecraft, but is quite different, is Minetest. This open-source game engine allows players to create their own games, focusing on a voxel style which gives the games an appearance similar to Minecraft.
Minetest has been around about as long as Minecraft itself. Released at a time when the game industry was beginning to open wider, making it easier for indie developers to get started, these simplified graphics becoming popular through Minecraft helped make Minetest a much greater success.
6 CastleMiner Z
Metacritic Score: N/A
- Release Date: November 9th, 2011
- Developer: Digital DNA
- Platforms: Microsoft Windows, Xbox 360
A game that was in itself a sequel to CastleMiner, and which was popular enough to generate a third game, CastleMiner Z takes place in a world made of blocks where players try to explore, survive, and build structures, giving it a number of similarities to Minecraft.
Players can choose which kind of terrain they are set down in, and then they must survive against zombies that have infested the terrain. This entry was the most well-loved of the three in the CastleMiner franchise, the zombie focus and variety in designs giving it a lot of replayability.
5 Cube Life: Island Survival
Metacritic Score: 55/100
- Release Date: June 4th, 2015
- Developer: Cypronia
- Platforms: Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Android, Xbox One, Microsoft Windows, macOS & Wii U
Another block-based game that immediately looks similar to Minecraft, Cube Life is set on an island, where the player washes up, forcing them to survive in a much more traditional survival game style than Minecraft initially presents.
Originally developed for the Wii U, this game has since been remastered and released on various platforms. Players are able to play in survival, creative, and multiplayer modes, facing off against a variety of bosses across the islands in order to make the islands safe. There are also cannibals that come out at night, giving this sandbox-style game a totally different flavor from Minecraft in several ways.
4 LEGO Worlds
Metacritic Score: 66/100
With Minecraft being a world made up of blocks, it already felt halfway to having the look and feel of LEGO games, and the massive franchise took the opportunity to eventually bring out its own sandbox game set in a procedurally-generated world in 2017 with LEGO Worlds.
This game was all about going to different planets and collecting gold bricks before moving on to the next one. There were multiplayer and single-player options, and players got to take part in a series of quests as they continued in their attempts to become master builders. LEGO Worlds was a solid hit for the long-running LEGO franchise, which shook up the style of their games from what fans have come to expect. It also features the unique idea of only really playing as one character in a LEGO game, normally there are loads to play throughout each entry.
3 Starbound
Metacritic Score: 81/100
Though Starbound is similar to Minecraft, it more commonly garners comparisons to Terraria, often cited by fans and critics as being “Terraria in space” which explains where it fits into the Minecraft clone listing. It is similar to Minecraft, except it is in 2D, but it still features survival and sandbox aspects aplenty, especially with the great modding community.
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The wide galaxy setting allows Starbound players a lot of freedom, the game is a little different in style from Minecraft as it features quests as well as allowing players to free roam. The universe is procedurally generated in a similar vein though, and players of Minecraft will surely love this varied setting and slightly altered style.
2 Terraria
Metacritic Score: 81/100
The best game that can be considered a Minecraft clone is one that has gathered its own massive and long-standing fan base, Terraria. This 2D version of a survival game that works in a similar vein to Minecraft was released around the same time as Minecraft and has grown and changed ever since, constantly evolving and finding new players to join in the fun in this light-hearted adventure.
Terraria blended Minecraft’s sandbox style with old-school 2D action and adventure games, making for a mixing of styles that has continued to appeal to fans for an extended period of time. While there are several ways in which Terraria works differently, such as a much more intricate crafting system, fans of Minecraft looking for something new will probably love what this game and world have to offer.
1 Dragon Quest Builders 2
Metacritic Score: 86/100
Dragon Quest Builders 2
- Released
- July 12, 2019
- Developer(s)
- Square Enix , Omega Force
- Genre(s)
- Action RPG , Adventure
A simplified version of the turn-based RPG Dragon Quest franchise, Dragon Quest Builders 2 is a sequel to a similar first game which took the franchise and threw fans of it into a sandbox-style action RPG with a hack-and-slash combat system, making for a number of changes, particularly in artistic style, for the series.
The Dragon Quest games are beloved, and this accessible version, now becoming its own franchise, has garnered a number of comparisons to the style of games like Minecraft. While there is plenty to differentiate them, this does feel as if a more traditional RPG has been mocked up in the style of Minecraft. This is a hugely fun Minecraft clone worth checking out for sure.
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