Ever since Minecraft hit full 1.0 release in 2011, there have been just three dimensions to explore – the Overworld, the Nether, and the End. That’s finally about to change, because Mojang has just revealed during its September Minecraft Live broadcast that the sandbox game will be expanding into a fourth dimension in 2027 – the Sift. Alongside that, the studio also confirmed that the next Minecraft game drop will add another new biome, the Ice Caves, which features a frozen Zombie variant.
While it’s only just been confirmed that the Minecraft Sift dimension will be coming to the original game, you might have seen it before. It’s a big part of Mojang’s upcoming ARPG spin-off, Minecraft Dungeons 2, which launches in just a few days on Tuesday September 29. To learn more about creating this new zone and integrating it to the wider universe, I spoke with Minecraft Dungeons 2 Creative Director Måns Olson and Design Director Laura de Llorens ahead of the announcement.
Olson explains that, while the first Dungeons was built on existing Minecraft locations, the team wanted to do something new for the sequel. “One of the things that came up early in our conversations about what the story of this game should be was the idea of the discovery of a new dimension.” He notes that it’s been 15 years since the last one was added, and that Mojang saw potential in the scale of Minecraft Dungeons 2 to deliver something “that felt like it had the size and the impact and the life that we wanted.”
In Dungeons 2, you access the Sift by travelling through rifts that open up across the map, and it’s immediately striking thanks to its magical color scheme. Olson adds that Mojang was keen to ensure the new dimension “felt meaningfully different from everything that existed in Minecraft.” The Overworld feels familiar to our real-life world, he remarks, while both the Nether and the End “are very hostile and imposing, both in different ways, but they have this threat to them.”
For the Sift, therefore, Mojang “really wanted to make something that felt a bit peaceful – serene, almost – and that gave a very different color palette for players to enjoy.” That doesn’t mean it’s necessarily a safe location, however. During the events of Minecraft Dungeons 2, the Sift is under threat from the nefarious Illagers, “so it’s still a dangerous place for the player to be,” Olson says, “but it’s not evil.”
“The Minecraft team has been involved in our process all along,” de Llorens tells me, explaining that the other parts of Mojang have worked with the Dungeons team to ensure the Sift “fit the universe of Minecraft.” During the Minecraft Live presentation, CCO Jens Bergensten adds, “New dimensions are of course very important, and they truly expand the universe – we thought it was very important for all the teams to get involved.”
Mojang also gave us a look at the next Minecraft game drop, The Frozen Caves, which will enter testing soon. This will introduce the Ice Caves, another rare underground region that can appear “deep beneath cold biome landscapes.” It’s filled with glowing ice crystals, good opportunities to grab exposed ore veins, and some below-zero hazards, including icicles that can drop if they’re exposed to too much light and heat, and the new frozen Zombie.
Frozen Zombies can occasionally spawn with Ice Balls, which they’ll throw at you to deal damage from range. Manage to take them down, however, and you can grab some for yourself, which also opens up the opportunity to craft the new Freezing Potion. Alongside this, ‘sound effects’ packs are coming to the Minecraft Marketplace in 2026 to offer even more ways to customize your adventures.
The Sift will be introduced to Minecraft Java and Bedrock in 2027. If you want to get an early taste of what it has to offer, however, there are mere days until Minecraft Dungeons 2 releases. To learn more about that, be sure to read the rest of my interview with Olsen and de Llorens.