Minecraft Opens the Sift, Its First New Dimension in 14 Years

Minecraft Dungeons II is live on September 29, 2026, and it opens the Sift, Minecraft’s first new dimension in over 14 years. Java and Bedrock still wait until 2027 to survive and build there. Xbox CEO Asha Sharma said more than 300,000 people play Minecraft for the first time on an average day, after more than 425 million copies sold.

The last time Mojang added a full world, the game was leaving beta. The Sift is the fourth plane on that map, and the studio is making players visit it as a dungeon crawl before it becomes a place to live.

Fourteen Years With Only Three Worlds

Minecraft has always been a travel game as much as a building game. You start in the Overworld, punch a tree, and then spend the rest of the save deciding which portal is worth the walk. That map froze in 2011.

THE MAP OF MINECRAFT TRAVEL

1. 2009: The Overworld appears in the first public versions of the game.
2. October 30, 2010: The Halloween Update adds the Nether, reached through a player-built portal.
3. November 18, 2011: Version 1.0.0 adds the End, reached through a stronghold portal, plus the Ender Dragon.
4. June 23, 2020: The Nether Update fills that hell-world with new biomes, piglins, and netherite.
5. September 26, 2026: Minecraft Live names the Sift as a fourth dimension.
6. September 29, 2026: Minecraft Dungeons II launches with rifts into the Sift.
7. 2027: The Sift is planned for Java and Bedrock, and Minecraft World is due to open at Chessington.

Two extra worlds arrived about a year apart, then nothing of that scale followed. Biomes, caves, and mobs kept landing. The structure of the atlas did not. On July 10, 2012, then-developer Nathan Adams said there were no plans for another dimension until the Nether and the End had more depth. The Nether finally got that depth on June 23, 2020. The End never received a rebuild on that scale, which is why a fourth world now lands on top of an old complaint.

THE FOUR MINECRAFT DIMENSIONS

Mojang’s own recap calls the Sift the first new dimension in over 14 years, joining the Overworld, the Nether, and the End. That span is the story. From November 18, 2011, to the September 26, 2026 broadcast is 14 years, 10 months, and 8 days. The studio kept adding places inside the old three worlds. It did not add a fourth door.

Dungeons II Opens the Sift on September 29

Minecraft Live on September 26, 2026, made the order of travel explicit. Design director Laura de Llorens walked through a Dungeons world whose balance is off, with angry illagers and an Illager High Council. Art director Ullis Linder and game director Måns Olson then showed a linked map instead of the first game’s separate missions, plus jumping. Rifts appear on that map. Fall into one and you leave the Overworld.

The official Dungeons II page puts it as rifts opening across the Overworld, and those rifts lead to the Sift. Xbox Wire’s launch note says the Sift will come to Minecraft in 2027 for players who want to explore, survive, and create there. Until that date, the dungeon crawler is the public tour.

Minecraft Dungeons II is out on Steam, Xbox Series X and Series S, PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch, and Nintendo Switch 2. It is included with Game Pass on Xbox and PC, and it supports Xbox Play Anywhere. You can play solo or with up to four people, locally, online, or mixed. You do not need the 2020 original, though a Hero Cape waits for anyone who plays both on the same Microsoft account.

WHAT WE KNOW

• The order: The Sift is playable in Dungeons II on September 29, 2026, then planned for Java and Bedrock in 2027.
• The door in Dungeons II: Rifts on the linked Overworld map drop you into the new plane.
• Named areas: Mojang has shown the Meadow and the Carapace, and says other Sift biomes are being held back for players to find.
• The named mob: A small rabbit-like creature called the blub lives there and squeaks.

WHAT IS UNCONFIRMED

• Vanilla entry: Mojang has not said how a survival player will open the Sift in Java or Bedrock.
• Shared cast: Dungeons II has extra Sift enemies; which of them cross into the sandbox is not confirmed.
• The 2027 date: The year is locked in the recap; the month is not.

That gap is why the spin-off matters. A year of rifts in an action RPG is a long look at blocks, biomes, and mobs before anyone has to generate a survival seed around them. It also leaves the End sitting where it has sat since 2011, which is the objection that followed the Live stills more loudly than the stills themselves.

What the Meadow and the Carapace Show

Sofia Dankis, writing the studio recap, called the Sift beautiful, vibrant, and teeming with souls. Xbox Wire adds that souls begin to fly through the Overworld before you even step through, and that once you are inside, shifting tides can affect your character, while new hazardous blocks change how you move. Meadows of color sit beside the Carapace, which the recap names as one of the shown areas without turning it into a bestiary.

The Sift is beautiful, vibrant, and teeming with souls. It’s also the first dimension to be added in over fourteen years. No wonder it looks so good! And it features areas like the Meadow and the Carapace.

Sofia Dankis, Minecraft Live September 2026 recap

The broadcast glimpse that leaked into stills is pink and blue-green, with sculk-like ground and a thick white willow-style tree in the distance. That is a different job from the Nether’s lava roof or the End’s black void. Early Dungeons II sessions already treat it as a place to wander, which is the test the 2027 survival version will have to pass if the Sift is going to be more than a painted dungeon set.

Minecraft’s own Live cut is the cleanest look at that terrain before you buy a ticket.

Ryan Cooper, who leads the Minecraft game team at Mojang, said the Sift is coming to Bedrock and Java, and that Dungeons II on September 29, 2026, is the first way to see it. Brandon Pearce, a Minecraft game designer, posted the same split: vanilla later, Dungeons II now.

Ice, Calcite, and a Zombie With No Name

The same Live did not leave the Overworld idle. Game director Agnes Larsson opened the show by repeating that adventure is a long-term focus, then the studio showed the next game drop: ice caves, a new underground biome in the family of dripstone, lush, and sulfur caves. They sit under frozen ground, packed with ice and calcite, and they are the Overworld trip you can take before 2027.

WHAT THE ICE CAVES DROP ADDS

• Icicles: They grow on the ceiling and, in the recap’s words, add ice-cold beauty to builds.
• Ice crystals: They grow on the ground and emit a soft light, so the caves are not pitch black by default.
• Calcite and ice: The walls and floors mix those blocks with packed ice, giving builders a cold palette without waiting for the Sift.
• Frozen zombie: It has no official name yet. Hits apply a freezing effect, and some throw ice balls.

Dankis joked that Brrrombie was right there if anyone wanted it. Nobody on stage took the bait. There is no release day for the drop beyond later in 2026. For anyone who wants a new place to walk next, that cave is the near-term destination, and the Sift is the far one.

Chessington Turns the Nether Into a Ride

Minecraft World is due in 2027 at Chessington World of Adventures Resort in Greater London, the same year Java and Bedrock are slated to get the Sift. Daisy Mercedes, creative producer at Merlin Entertainments, and Filip Keatley-Thoms, creative lead at Mojang, used the Live slot to talk about a park aimed at explorers, builders, and people who would rather sit in a cart.

Escape the Nether is billed as the first Minecraft rollercoaster, running indoors and outdoors, up, down, and around in the way the dimension already does on a screen. The first Minecraft World Hotel is in the same plan, with themed rooms, a deep-sea diner, and mobs in the halls. The recap also promises the world’s biggest Minecraft shop, themed food, and interactive adventures. If the Sift is a virtual fourth country, Chessington is the physical souvenir stand, plus a night in a branded bed.

Handheld travel gets a date too. Minecraft arrives on Nintendo Switch 2 on October 27, 2026, a month after Dungeons II. The recap treated that as a separate cheer at the end of the show, after Minecraft Education’s 10th birthday. For anyone who already carries a Switch, it is the version that follows them onto a train while the Sift is still a rift in another game.

The Old Dimensions Had to Earn Their Keep

The 14-year gap was a policy before it was a drought. Adams repeated the depth-first rule in 2012. In 2018, several Mojang voices, including Adams, still said the existing worlds were not finished enough. In November 2022, Pearce argued a new dimension would have to play differently from the ones already in the save, and that extra worlds were a way to spread content so a single map did not choke on too many ideas.

On August 19, 2026, Jens Bergensten put the same bar on the Sift itself: each dimension needs a functional reason to exist. That is a blunt design problem. The Nether’s reason is heat, gold, and a short-cut through hell. The End’s reason is a dragon and a finish line. The Sift’s reason, in the copy we have, is color, souls, new rules, and a place that is not another hostile pit. Whether survival Minecraft can keep that promise is a 2027 question. Dungeons II is the 2026 draft.

Pearce’s Live-day post is the short version of the studio line, coming to vanilla Minecraft after you see it in the crawler. Putting a fourth world in a paid spin-off a year early is also a long preview. That lag is now part of how the destination is being sold.

Sharma Says 300,000 People Start Every Day

The audience for a new plane is not a nostalgia club. Sharma posted the figures during Live, on September 26, 2026, in the same breath as Dungeons II, creator tools, and Switch 2.

Today at Minecraft LIVE: Dungeons II, our first new dimension in more than 14 years, new ways for creators to build, Minecraft on Nintendo Switch 2, and more.

More than 300,000 people play Minecraft for the first time on an average day. After 17+ years and 425M+ copies sold, I… pic.twitter.com/fdhkwuh258

— ASHA (@asha_shar) September 26, 2026

MINECRAFT IN SHARMA’S FIGURES

• Copies sold: More than 425 million.
• New players: More than 300,000 people play for the first time on an average day.
• Age of the hit: 17+ years, with the game still finding people who have never spawned in an Overworld.
• The pitch: New players keep arriving, and longtime ones keep getting new things to discover.

Those 300,000 daily first sessions still land in a three-world atlas. Ice caves will change the basement of the Overworld later in 2026. Chessington will put a Nether coaster in Greater London in 2027. The Sift is the first new country on the virtual map since the End, and until Java and Bedrock get it in 2027, the only official way in is a rift in Dungeons II on September 29, 2026.