Minecraft is a testament to player creativity above all else – and 16 years later, no other game comes close

Minecraft screenshot with Xbox Series X five year anniversary overlay — (Image credit: Mojang Studios)

From the moment you start up Creative Mode in Minecraft, a layer of Zen rests on your process. You stare out into the blank canvas of a forest world and begin your steady diet of exploring and constructing, with little pressure from objectives or time limits. Even the enemy-filled Survival Mode is a relatively relaxed option – the point of Minecraft isn't to fight, but to build. It is all about contentedly shaping the world, combining comfort food and creative ambition, and Minecraft's simple pleasures have turned it into the best-selling video game of all time.

First launched in 2009 for the PC and now available on virtually every modern console imaginable, Minecraft, like many other famous games, harnesses a real-world activity in a digital space. Like Pokémon was originally conceived as a translation of its creator's passion for bug-catching, like The Legend of Zelda was an effort to capture a love of exploring, Minecraft is the world's most unlimited collection of building blocks. Anyone that has ever looked up from Lego to discover that they've lost half a day to their intricate work can likely find at least a spiritual connection to Minecraft.

Building blocks

Witches in Minecraft Legends — (Image credit: Mojang Studios)

All revved up

Screenshot from Forza Horizon 5's Hot Wheels expansion, showing some cars racing on a hot wheels track wrapped around natural terrain. — (Image credit: Xbox Game Studios)

Forza Horizon 5 is one of gaming's greatest car modding games, and I'm flying like a Bulleit in my restomod monstrosities

Since that 2009 debut, Minecraft has become so much more. It's a mega-franchise now – There are video game spinoffs, a manga adaptation, copious books for children and teens, toys, and, as of 2025, a blockbuster film that's likely going to end up as one of the top 5 highest grossers of the year.

It's even got a wider lore that mixes official branding with fan-made dedication – the creepypasta figure "Herobrine" is now as famous as some of the official characters. In short, it's a powerhouse that proves, if nothing else, the grip and influence that gaming has on wider pop culture. However, the most profound joy that comes from it isn't pulled from "CHICKEN JOCKEY" memes. It comes from you, by yourself or in a little group, making things out of materials you gather from its earth.

Minecraft, despite its trademark blocky look, has led to some fantastic structures. Whole online series devoted themselves for years to developing different ways to play it. Entire separate video game worlds have been concocted in it, from the Mushroom Kingdom to iconic buildings from Resident Evil. Players, sometimes with the support of plentiful mods, have built Jurassic Park and the Death Star, Arkham Asylum and Pandora. There are times, when you stand in its sky atop a spire of your own making that it feels limitless, like a procedurally-generated tribute to your dreams.

Minecraft house build ideas — (Image credit: Mojang)

But in just highlighting the grand architecture, you miss out on one of Minecraft's most exciting features – how empowering it can feel to young players and kids who might be so new to video games that Minecraft is the first one that they spend any real time with.

There's a reason why Reddit is full of parents inquiring if Minecraft is an appropriate interest for the kids and even more parents responding in the affirmative. You watch one kid begin their first dig underground and discover their first cavern, one that might be filled with lava or waterfalls or precious jewels, and you watch their eyes light up with the spark of possibility.

How ready the kid is to take their projects to the internet and interact with the potentially chaotic array of folks they may find there is up to the parent. And the youngest ones might be flummoxed by Minecraft's organizational system, which demands you pay attention to what's in all your little boxes. That aspect often requires constant mixing and matching in order to maximize your space and the efficacy of the items you have. It's in those cases that "easy-going dirt pile simulator" becomes "Dad, can you come help me with this? I went into a cave and now I can't see anything."

A world of your own

Minecraft Vibrant Visuals — (Image credit: Mojang)

If you match what's in your head with what's underground, you can build it.

Once you get the hang of it, though, and learn that so much is based on the gentle repetitiveness of laying down lines of blocks as you chip away at the gargantuan plans you have, Minecraft reaches its ultimate emotional potency.

Its worth as an actual therapeutic tool is up for debate, but many have claimed that playing it allows for a certain form of meditative state. While the soundtrack, a mix of melodies that rarely becomes more than subdued ambience, drones on, you devote yourself to tasks that are downright transportive. Minecraft can feel less like a game and more like a frame of mind that you enter.

Those that want more will likely need to look elsewhere. Every attempt to offer Minecraft a story has received a mixed reception at best, from spinoffs like Minecraft: Story Mode to the 2025 film. The plots of video game adaptations are notoriously threadbare and self-referential, with their success being reliant on at least matching the joy of the source material. Minecraft, though, took it to another level, and not even the buoyancy of the actors (no one commits to the bit quite like Jack Black), could hide the fact that there was no narrative strength to be, well, mined. The Minecraft Movie was a movie about how fun the general idea of Minecraft is.

Minecraft was destined to be simple. It's supposed to rely on a quite literal form of tunnel vision as you smash your pickaxe into the side of a cliff a hundred million times until you achieve your pixelated intentions. And that's why, to this day, it remains immensely popular and effortlessly playable. It's a testament to creativity, and if you match what's in your head with what's underground, you can build it.

We're celebrating the best Xbox Series X games to commemorate the console's five-year anniversary, and there's plenty more where Minecraft comes from!