A few months ago, Minecraft's original console developer, 4J Studios, showed off a new internal engine they created called the Elements Engine. Now, they've announced what game they'll be making with it. It's called Reforj and it's an “open-world multiplayer survival sandbox.” But they say it's not aiming to be Minecraft 2.
The above screenshot is from a pre-alpha version of Reforj, which currently doesn't have a release date. The trailer below shows more of the engine in action.
“Coming from 4J, it means comparisons to Minecraft are inevitable,” Joseph Garrett told GamesIndustry.biz in a recent interview about the game. Garrett, better known as Minecraft YouTuber Stampy, is working with 4J on Reforj. “There were already articles about 4J doing Minecraft 2. But that's not what we're trying to do. Even though we're all big fans of Minecraft, we don't need to make another one. It already exists.”
Reforge will instead offer a “very different gaming experience,” says 4J co-founder Chris van der Kuyl. The Elements engine is designed to serve an open-world survival game where players can manipulate the world, as in Minecraft.
4J Studios says they hope to release Reforj early and develop it in partnership with their community, knowing they are a small team and therefore have low expectations for potential player numbers.
We're well past the point where a new Minecraft game comes out every other month, but it's too early to tell if Reforj has anything more to offer than Ylands or Trove or the thousands of other block-building games that have come and gone. I'll say this: I don't think replacing cubes with smaller, angled pieces is as good an idea as most of those games seem to think.