Minecraft turns 15 years of version 1.0 with an addition many players had long assumed was overdue: for the first time since 2011, the game gets a new dimension. Announced at this month's Minecraft LIVE, it is called The Sift, and it will come to Minecraft Java and Bedrock in 2027.

Up to that point, the story is known. What matters is what Mojang showed, what it left out, and why this dimension shows up first in a different game.

Notice: this post is not official and is not approved by or associated with Mojang or Microsoft. The images are Mojang Studios press material, reproduced with credit to the source.

Four dimensions, and the last one is from 2011

To gauge the size of the announcement, it helps to look at the map. Minecraft has three dimensions: the Overworld, the Nether and the End. All three were in place when the game left beta in November 2011.

Since then, fifteen years of updates. New biomes, new mobs, new mechanics, new redstone components. But no new dimension. The content grew inside the three places that already existed.

The End was the last one, and it arrived with 1.0 precisely to host the final fight with the dragon. After that, nothing. Fourteen years without a new dimension, and now the game will finally have a fourth.

The Sift is born in Dungeons II, not in Minecraft

The most important detail, and the easiest to miss, is that The Sift does not arrive in Minecraft first. It arrives first in Minecraft Dungeons II, the action spin-off where you fight hordes of enemies, launching September 29, 2026 for PC, Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch and Switch 2.

Players of the first Dungeons remember a structure of separate levels. The sequel changes that: the Dungeons II world is interconnected, and rifts appear across it, tears that open throughout the map and carry you into the Sift. There is also jumping, which helps a great deal because there are many rifts to cross.

Put differently: The Sift will be the first place this content is actually playable. If you want to see the Sift's mobs, blocks and biomes in action there is a direct path, and it happens to be a separate game.

The art direction is an answer to the Nether and the End

The most interesting part of the presentation was not mechanical, it was aesthetic. Dungeons II creative director Måns Olson explained that the intent was to avoid yet another hostile environment.

His reasoning is direct. The Overworld is familiar, close to the real world. The Nether and the End are, in his words, "very hostile and imposing, both in different ways, but they have this threat to them." The Sift was meant as the counterpoint: something "a bit peaceful, serene, almost", with a very different colour palette.

It shows in the images. No incandescent red like the Nether, no hostile purple like the End. The Sift appears in greens and blues, warm gold, pink and cyan, with a lot of diffuse light. The word that comes up most in the descriptions is "vibrant", and the creature that stuck was the blue bunny.

One caveat from Olson is worth repeating: serene does not mean safe. During Dungeons II events, the Sift is threatened by the Illagers. In his words, it is "still a dangerous place for the player to be, but it's not evil".

Two named biomes, the rest a secret

Mojang named two areas and left the rest for players to discover: Meadow and Carapace. The other Sift biomes were not shown, and the company said explicitly that additional areas stay secret for anyone who plays Dungeons II.

It is a decision that fits the format. Dungeons II is a discovery game, and revealing everything in the show would kill the interest. The same reasoning applies with more force to main Minecraft: The Sift in 2027 will probably arrive with biomes nobody has conceived yet.

What Mojang has not said

This is the part that usually gets skipped in quick coverage, and it is worth recording.

Mojang has not explained how The Sift will work in Minecraft itself. There is no public information about:

• how you access the dimension in the main game, the equivalent of Dungeons II's rifts
• which mobs and blocks arrive, and whether the ones we know change behaviour
• what it means for the game loop, for equipment progression and for difficulty balance
• whether the Overworld, the Nether and the End change in any way because of it

What is known is that the Dungeons II team worked with the rest of Mojang from the start, so that the Sift would fit the Minecraft universe. Design director Laura de Llorens said that integration began in the earliest conversations. And Mojang's creative director Jens Bergensten summed up the reason: "New dimensions are of course very important, and they truly expand the universe."

What is also unclear is what changes between the Dungeons II version and the 2027 version. The official answer is only that Minecraft itself will get a full dimension to explore, survive and build in. Whether it will be identical to the Dungeons II version, nobody knows.

The rest of Minecraft LIVE

The Sift was the main announcement, but not the only one. At the same event:

• Ice Caves, a new frozen biome with a frozen zombie variant
• Minecraft Dungeons II, with release date and platforms confirmed
• Nintendo Switch 2, with Minecraft due October 27, 2026
• new in-game creation features

Where to watch

If you want to see The Sift in motion, these are the official routes:

• Minecraft LIVE September 2026 on YouTube, the full announcement
• XBOX Wire: the Dungeons II dimension comes to Java and Bedrock
• Minecraft.net: the September Minecraft LIVE recap

And if you want to see it in 2027, from September 29 you can start with Dungeons II, which is the only way to know The Sift before it reaches the main game.

📸 Cover image credit

• Image: MCD2 promotional material (The Sift)
• Author: Mojang Studios
• License: Mojang Studios - material de imprensa, todos os direitos reservados · via XBOX Wire