Founded in 2005, 4J Studios has worked on everything from Oblivion’s PS3 port to the 2010 remaster of Perfect Dark. To many though, it will always be known as the studio that brought Minecraft to 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, to PlayStation, Xbox and PC, they’re surrounded by piles of Minecraft merch and various awards won for their work on the series.
Now, years after parting ways with Mojang, 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…
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