Minecraft Legends: Launch times, preorder, localization, platforms, preload, and more

Minecraft Legends is the latest off-shoot of one of the world's most popular games and franchises, Minecraft. It's a wild departure from its creative survival predecessor, however, as Minecraft Legends is an entirely unique action-strategy game developed in tangent by Mojang Studios and Blackbird Interactive.

What does this mean? Well, you can read Windows Central's Minecraft Legends preview for a more in-depth breakdown of exactly what this game is and why you should be excited for it, but I'll provide a brief summary here.

Minecraft Legends employs many gameplay elements of the strategy genre, including tasking players with managing a plethora of resources, building of offensive, defensive, and supportive buildings, raising and commanding armies into battle, and going to war against a seemingly unstoppable threat. However, Minecraft Legends changes the formula by placing you directly in the middle of the action as the Hero, thus injecting a bevy of action mechanics into the midst.

You'll explore a procedurally generated world, uniting the people and mobs of the Overworld against a terrifying threat from another dimension: the Piglins. You'll need to be courageous and clever, and will need to rely on the tools and support provided to you as well as your own ingenuity. Strategize, research upgrades, build fortifications, raise mighty armies, and slay foes with your own sword — All of this and more is what makes Minecraft Legends, and it's looking to be one of the best Xbox games of the year.

Yes, Minecraft Legends is fully cross-platform at launch, similar to all other Minecraft games. Despite being a first-party Xbox Game Studios team, Mojang Studios has continued its philosophy of reaching players wherever they are. Minecraft Legends is the studio's most ambitious launch plan ever, with lessons learned from all prior launches.

Minecraft Legends is simultaneously releasing on the following platforms: Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, Windows 10 / 11 PCs, PS5, PS4, and Nintendo Switch. The action-strategy title will be optimized to take advantage of the more powerful hardware inside current-gen consoles like Xbox Series X|S and PS5, as well as modern gaming PCs. Minecraft Legends will include the same content on all platforms.

Yes, Minecraft Legends will fully support online cross-play at launch across all platforms. This is in stark contrast to Minecraft Dungeons, which took a long while to gain cross-play support after launch. Minecraft Legends features two online modes: 2 to 4-player online campaign co-op, and 4 to 8-player online competitive multiplayer. Cross-play will work across all these modes, with some caveats.

All Minecraft Legends cross-play will rely on being signed into an active Microsoft Account, regardless of your platform. Also, the host of a co-op campaign dictates the number of supported players. Xbox Series X|S, PS5, and Windows PC hosts can support up to 4 players in online co-op, while older platforms like Xbox One, PS4, and Nintendo Switch will only support up to 2 players when hosting. As long as the host is on a current-gen platform, all other players can be playing on any Minecraft Legends platform.

At launch, Minecraft Legends will support full localization for the user interface, subtitles, and voice over in 12 languages. Minecraft Legends will support partial localization for the user interface and subtitles in an additional 14 languages. You can view a list of these languages below:

Fortunately, Minecraft Legends is enjoying a simultaneous global release all over the world, meaning you won't have to stress about other players gaining access before you. To be more precise, Minecraft Legends is launching on Tuesday, April 18, 2023, at 4:00 p.m. UTC. I'll list some other major time zones below, but keep in mind that all these times are, technically, at the same time (time zones are confusing).

Minecraft Legends is available to preload (or predownload, if you prefer that term). Players who have preordered the game or are subscribed to Xbox Game Pass can preload Minecraft Legends onto their device, ensuring you're ready to play the moment it launches. On Xbox Series X, Minecraft Legends' download size is approximately 7.2GB, and on PC (through the Microsoft Store) it's around 10.7GB. Download sizes may vary slightly from platform to platform.

Keep in mind, Windows Central was only able to confirm Minecraft Legends' preload through the Microsoft Store on Xbox and PC, so other platforms may differ. There may also be a day one patch update for Minecraft Legends on launch day.

Yes, Minecraft Legends has two separate editions: Standard and Deluxe. Minecraft Legends Standard Edition retails for USD $39.99, and includes the base game and all its content (solo and co-op campaign, competitive online multiplayer, Lost Legends & Myths challenge mode, and more). The Standard Edition is only available for digital purchase and preorder.

Minecraft Legends Deluxe Edition retails for USD $49.99, and includes the entire base game and all its content, as well as six additional in-game cosmetic skins. These skins include one Hero skin and four Mount skins at launch, and one additional Mount skin when it becomes available. The Deluxe Edition is available for digital and physical purchase and preorder.

After launch, the Minecraft Legends Deluxe Skin Pack, which includes all of the extras from the Deluxe Edition, will be available to purchase separately for USD $14.99.

Yes, Minecraft Legends is currently available for preorder ahead of its release on April 18, 2023. You can preorder Minecraft Legends on every platform, including Xbox, Windows PC, PlayStation, and Switch. There are physical editions of Minecraft Legends Deluxe Edition available for preorder on all console platforms in addition to the digital and physical preorders of Minecraft Legends Standard Edition. You can find all the preorder links for Minecraft Legends below:

Yes, Minecraft Legends will be available through Xbox Game Pass on day one. Mojang Studios is a first-party Xbox studio, so all of its games simultaneously launch into Microsoft's gaming subscription and are permanently available there.

More specifically, Minecraft Legends will be available through Xbox Game Pass on Xbox Series X|S and Xbox One, PC Game Pass on Windows PCs, and Xbox Cloud Gaming on all other platforms. This means Minecraft Legends is available on every tier of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, which includes all these services and the Xbox Live Gold membership necessary to play Minecraft Legends' online multiplayer and co-op on Xbox consoles.

Xbox Game Pass subscribers will also get a 10% discount on purchasing Minecraft Legends after it releases, should they want to upgrade to the Deluxe Edition, permanently add the game to their library, or further support the developers. Future Minecraft Legends DLC would enjoy this discount, too. One of the most anticipated games of the year is also one of the best Xbox Game Pass games, thanks to this widespread support of the service.