Minecraft Dungeons II Launches 29 September With a 76 Metascore, a $29.99 Price and Game Pass

Minecraft Dungeons II launches on 29 September 2026 on Steam, Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch and Nintendo Switch 2, according to Mojang's official Dungeons II page. It costs $29.99 or £24.99 on Steam, is included with Game Pass according to Xbox Wire, and the first reviews put it at 76 on Metacritic.

This article is built on Mojang's and Xbox's own pages, the Steam listing and the review aggregators, all checked at about 17:40 UTC on 28 September. AFK Journal has not played the game; every opinion below is attributed to the outlet that published it.

What time does Minecraft Dungeons II unlock?

Mojang has given a date but no hour. Its date announcement, its FAQ and the Xbox Wire preview all say 29 September, and Steam lists the date alone. Several guide sites are circulating a specific hour without citing Mojang or Xbox, so we are not repeating one. It is also the question fans keep asking: at least two threads on r/MinecraftDungeons since 27 September ask exactly that.

What are critics saying about Minecraft Dungeons II?

Reviews went live on 28 September and they are split more than the averages suggest. OpenCritic shows a Top Critic Average of 85 with 81% of critics recommending it, but only four of the 16 reviews it had logged come from top critics, so that number will move. Metacritic shows a Metascore of 76 from 24 critic reviews.

The sharpest disagreement is about length and the endgame. IGN describes a roughly seven-hour story and an endgame built around a single new activity, Soul Storms. GameSpot reports about 16 hours for the campaign on PC and lists "lots of post-campaign activities" as a positive. GamesRadar+ lands in between at about 12 hours on Xbox Series X. Even IGN, the harshest of the big outlets, calls the Sift, the new dimension, the best part of the game.

How does it compare with the first Minecraft Dungeons?

On early numbers, the sequel is ahead. Pure Xbox notes that the 2020 original finished at 70 on Metacritic for PC and 74 for Xbox One, against 76 on Xbox Series X and 74 on PC for Dungeons II at the time of its roundup. The original has aged well with players: its Steam page shows 90% positive from 19,747 reviews ("Very Positive"), and 1,342 people were playing it on Steam at about 17:35 UTC on 28 September.

What it means for Minecraft players

Dungeons II is the first place to see the Sift, which Mojang's Minecraft Live recap says is coming to Java and Bedrock Edition next year. Our Minecraft Live September 2026 roundup covers what else was announced. Mojang is also offering a Hero Cape to anyone who plays both Dungeons games on the same Microsoft account: it unlocks in Dungeons II and in Minecraft Java and Bedrock, and playing through Game Pass counts, according to the official page.

What to do now

If you have Game Pass Ultimate or PC Game Pass, there is nothing to buy. On Steam, the listing includes cross-platform multiplayer, shared or split-screen co-op and Remote Play Together, but only "partial" controller support. The minimum PC is modest: an Intel Core i3-8100 or Ryzen 3 2200G, 8GB of RAM and a GeForce GTX 1050 or Radeon RX 560 with 2GB of VRAM.

We will publish a full critics-versus-players verdict once enough Steam reviews exist, and everything else on the game lives on our Minecraft Dungeons II hub.