Founded in 2005, 4J Studios has worked on everything fromOblivion’sPS3port to the 2010 remaster ofPerfect Dark. To many though, it will always be known as the studio that broughtMinecraftto console.
For most of the 2010s, this was 4J’s sole focus, and it shows as I walk around its studio in Dundee, Scotland. Even as developers are hard at work porting their latest game,Manic Mechanics, toPlayStation,XboxandPC, they’re surrounded by piles of Minecraft merch and various awards won for their work on the series.
Now, years after parting ways withMojang, 4J is eager to carve out its own path - and that path starts with something much smaller in scope.
“This team was, for more than 10 years, working on one game,” says 4J chairperson, Chris van der Kuyl. “When we started [moving] ourselves from Minecraft into what comes next, Paddy [Burns, CEO] and I just said, ‘Guys, go and have some fun. We honestly don’t really care if nothing comes out of this, it’s fine.'
“Well, loads of good things came out of it. We gave them time to develop ideas that people loved into something more.”
After hosting a post-Minecraft game jam, 4J Studios had anywhere between four to six games in a prototype stage. Ultimately, the team settled on just one: Manic Mechanics. This chaotic co-op game tasks players with working together to fix up vehicles in a set amount of time, with each level throwing different tasks at the team. It launched on Switch last year, with its main appeal being local multiplayer.
“We’ve all got a bit of a soft spot for couch co-op,” says van der Kuyl. “The idea that there’s a big screen and friends come round or there’s a family night - you don’t want to sit and watch somebody play Starfield for five hours. You’ll be bored rigid with it. You want games like Jackbox.”
This isn’t anything new for the team. In fact, 4J’s loyalty to couch co-op was also felt in its work on Minecraft.
“To Mojang Studios, [we said] we need split-screen multiplayer for Minecraft Console. They’re like, ‘Why would you do that?’. We’re like, ‘Believe me, people are going to love it.’”
From what van der Kuyl tells me, 4J is often guided by its Minecraft experience. So much so that the developer is eager to return to sandbox games at some point in the future.
“Not surprisingly, Minecraft is probably not our last foray into sandbox gaming,” says van der Kuyl. “That audience will want to see us do something. We get that. […] We’re asking them to indulge us for a little bit, as we go off down the couch co-op route for a little while.”
More specifically, I ask if this means 4J is working on a Minecraft rival, something I’d seen fans calling for online ever since the studio ceased its porting duties.
“We’ve got way too much respect for the Mojang team to ever suggest that we could do a rival to Minecraft. Because Minecraft is Minecraft after all, the world’s biggest game. So nothing is going to rival that,” he says.
“There’s going to be interesting stuff from us before too long,” he adds. “For us, that’s incredibly exciting, but it’s probably going to be a game that will grow and it might have small projects within the game.”
Before Manic Mechanics, the last game 4J developed was Minecraft: Nintendo Switch Edition in 2017.
The team at 4J Studios aren’t done with Minecraft-like games either, as they share how it influenced Manic Mechanics.
“It makes sense how we’ve gravitated towards this kind of game as well,” says Thomas Fyfe, senior gameplay designer for Manic Mechanics. “Coming off the back of Minecraft, a lot of our designers worked on minigames and party games. We utilised our skill sets and tried something new in a different genre from what we’ve done before.”
But in other ways, Manic Mechanics came from a desire to show off what else the studio is capable of.
Minecraft is probably not our last foray into sandbox gaming.
“The team wanted a palate cleanser,” says Brian Gomez, creative director. “Even when we were doing all the content packs and everything for Minecraft, we were always doing game jams. We just love this concept, and we’d just like to do this before we do anything else in the same open-world, sandbox genre.”
However, don’t fret if you are a fan of sandbox games. As Gomez says, “But are we done in that space? No.”
This sentiment of needing a break from larger projects is also shared by Stormcloud, a sister studio to 4J.
“I don’t really want to work on a triple-A. I’ve never wanted to work on triple-A games, they just don’t interest me,” says Frank Arnot, founder of Stormcloud. “I hope that there’s a space for people in between the triple-A games that want to play smaller, more creative titles.”
This isn’t just a case of personal taste, but also practicality. As Arnot explains, the team has to make up for its smaller size with its grander ambitions.
“They’re spending hundreds of millions. We’re not even spending double-digit millions,” Arnot says. “They’ll probably spend more on coffee than we’ll spend on a whole budget. […] We cannot compete with them. So we need to compete on imagination, creativity, and taking risks.”
At the very least, van der Kuyl doesn’t seem to fear that this will hold 4J back. As the conversation inevitably turns to the current state of the gaming industry - layoffs, ballooning game budgets - van der Kuyl holds onto hope that, despite it all, the next big game is something that shareholders will never see coming. 4J certainly didn’t see it coming when, prior to Minecraft, it kept itself busy porting huge, triple-A games from known publishers.
We’ve got way too much respect for the Mojang team to ever suggest that we could do a rival to Minecraft […] nothing is going to rival that.
“I remember in the early 2000s going, ‘If all I’ve got in front of me is massive triple-As, is this really who I want to be?” he says. “And I thought, ‘Well, it’s the only thing that’s working. We did that work on Oblivion. Maybe we should hook up withBethesdaand do moreElder Scrolls-type stuff.’
“And then suddenly, out of nowhere comes Minecraft. It’s one guy, [he] gets it out there and it’s a bit broken and rubbish. And then people go, ‘I really like it. Why don’t you add more things to it?’ So there is a different way. To be part of that has been one of the greatest privileges.”
Even with the string of bad news these past few months, van der Kuyl remains optimistic that there’s still room for the next Minecraft to take off. “Nobody knows what’s going to be huge next. Nobody sawPalworldcoming a few weeks ago. So for us, it’s like, don’t follow trends, don’t have expectations. Just do a game that you want to make. And be able to afford it. You’re not going to see us throwing 100 million at the wall and fingers crossed, it’s all going to work.”
Ultimately, van der Kuyl holds onto a simple truth: “What people want is really great games, and they’ll always want really great games”.
