Is *Minecraft* Getting Its Own Theme Park? Is the 460 million investment worth it?

The offline expansion of game IPs has, over the past two years, shifted from brand promotion to heavy-asset competition, and Minecraft is now filling in this piece as well.

According to Kotaku, Mojang Studios is partnering with Merlin Entertainments to build the official Minecraft theme park, “Minecraft World,” inside Chessington World of Adventures in southwest London, UK. The total investment in the project is £50 million, approximately RMB 461 million, and it is currently still in the planning stage. Objectively speaking, this figure is not especially aggressive by theme park industry standards, but for a game adaptation project, it is no longer a lightweight collaboration. It feels more like an early test of IP commercialization entering its second generation of products.

Based on the information disclosed so far, the park will feature the world’s first Minecraft-themed roller coaster, along with themed dining, retail stores, and a large number of interactive experiences built around the Minecraft universe. Officials have also mentioned that multiple Minecraft creators will be invited to help co-develop the park, with the goal of recreating the blocky world familiar to players as faithfully as possible. However, the list of participants has not yet been announced, which means that at this stage the project is still more about confirming its direction, with plenty of room left before final implementation.

From a design perspective, Minecraft is actually very well suited to becoming a theme park. Its appeal is not driven by a single character, but by memorable elements like environments, building, exploration, and survival mechanics. That kind of content naturally lends itself to being broken down into rides, retail layouts, and parent-child interactive attractions. Compared with some IPs that rely more heavily on narrative performance, Minecraft has a higher margin for error in offline adaptation and is also better positioned to appeal to young families and casual visitors.

But compared with similar projects, it is not exactly the first to break new ground. Japan already has Pokémon-themed parks, as well as Super Nintendo World at Universal Studios Osaka, and these projects have proven that video game IPs can effectively drive offline consumer spending. Even so, “Minecraft World” still has one clear point of value—it will become the UK’s first theme park built around an official game IP. That means it does not necessarily need to be a global first; as long as it secures an early foothold in the UK market, it already carries fairly clear commercial significance.

For players, news like this is better treated as a signal of industry trends at this stage rather than a consumer guide. The reason is simple: the project has not yet announced an opening date, ticket prices, or its creator lineup, so in the short term it is impossible to judge whether it will ultimately lean toward an “immersive experience” or resemble a set of traditional rides with a themed skin. If the project can truly bring community creators into the design layer later on, rather than simply using them for promotional endorsement, its identity and distinctiveness will be much stronger.

Overall, it is not surprising that Minecraft is making a theme park. What is really worth watching is how deep it will go. An investment of RMB 461 million cannot buy just a co-branded outer shell; it also needs to build a sufficiently stable offline content system. For an IP of this scale, only by turning “playable” into “stroll-worthy” can this money really be considered well spent.