Minecraft nostalgia
House and farm in the middle of nowhere.
Minecraft is one of the most popular games ever made with 200 million sales and 126 million active players each month. On December 14, 2021 Minecraft reached one trillion (!) views on YouTube.
Even with all its popularity, single-player Minecraft pulls all of that popularity and player base away in an instant and, in a good way, all you are left with is your own thoughts and creativity. You are not bound by server rules and your actions aren’t seen by strangers, only by you and maybe your friends.
Minecraft’s gameplay is a calm sandbox where you can build freely in the near-empty world. Even signs of buildings that could have been built by other players are abandoned, like mine shafts and the Stronghold. Mobs with human characteristics are obviously not human but still make bases and villages feel somewhat alive.
Daniel Rosenfeld, better known by his stage name C418, composed the soundtrack. He describes it as a “pentatonic chill pill” on his website. The soundtrack adds onto the gameplay. When building or mining or exploring, the calm music will always accompany you.
Because of Minecraft’s age, people will naturally feel nostalgic for the game. Most of people’s nostalgia involves revisiting old Minecraft worlds. It is always nice to look back on the past with a time capsule of your thoughts and friends at the time, especially in a post-Covid era where nothing will ever be the same. All the time spent with friends or family on ultimately unfinished worlds will always be a remnant of your childhood, which is enhanced by your childhood ignorance and innocence. When you were nine years old you would have never cared about real world issues because you didn’t have too. All we cared about was video games and our own little worlds.
Sources:
Minecraft still incredibly popular as sales top 200 million and 126 million play monthly
