Minecraft developer Mojang has firmly stated its stance against integrating generative artificial intelligence (AI) into its game development process. Despite the growing trend of AI use in the gaming industry, as seen with Activision's incorporation of generative AI art in Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 and Microsoft's development of Muse—an AI designed to generate game ideas—Mojang remains committed to human creativity.
During a recent event attended by IGN, Minecraft Vanilla game director Agnes Larsson emphasized the importance of human creativity in game development. "Here for us, just like Minecraft is about creativity and creating," Larsson explained, "I think it's important that it makes us feel happy to create as humans. That's a purpose, [it] makes life look beautiful. So for us, we really want it to be our teams that make our games."
Echoing this sentiment, Ingela Garneij, executive producer of Minecraft Vanilla, highlighted the unique human touch that defines Minecraft. "For me, it's the thinking outside of the box part. This specific touch of: what is Minecraft? How does it look? That extra quality is really tricky to create through AI," Garneij noted. She further elaborated on the challenges of maintaining the game's essence through remote teams, stating, "We even try to have remote teams sometimes and guide them in building things for us, which has never worked, because you have to be here working together face-to-face."
Garneij stressed the importance of human interaction in understanding the values, principles, ecosystem, and lore of Minecraft. "I mean creativity is... you need to meet like this as a person, as a human to really truly understand the values and principles and the ecosystem, the lore, everything. It's so massive Minecraft, it's a planet, it's massive."
Mojang's dedication to human creativity is evident in their ongoing efforts to build on Minecraft's record-breaking success. The recently announced graphics update, titled Vibrant Visuals, is set to enhance the game's visual experience in the near future. Additionally, Mojang has no plans to shift Minecraft to a free-to-play model and continues to resist the idea of creating a "Minecraft 2." Despite being 16 years old, Minecraft shows no signs of slowing down, and Mojang's stance against generative AI remains firm.
For more details on what's coming to Minecraft, check out everything announced at Minecraft Live 2025.
