Minecraft for Xbox Series X|S Has Been Rated in Germany

It looks like Microsoft is getting ready to release a current-gen version of Minecraft for Xbox Series X|S consoles. A new version of the game for Xbox Series X|S has been rated by the German Entertainment Software Self-Regulation Body on August 3 (via VGC), and an official announcement could pretty arrive soon.

Minecraft is one of the best-selling games of all time with over 238 million copies sold as of April 2021. Microsoft acquired its developer Mojang Studios back in 2014, which was Satya Nadella’s first big acquisition after replacing Steve Ballmer as the CEO of the company. Yet, Mojang Studios continued to operate independently in the following years, which is probably why Minecraft still doesn’t really feel like a first-party game.

You may remember the “Super Duper Graphics Pack” for the Xbox One X that was teased at E3 2017 but never released. As of today, Minecraft offers no specific enhancements on Xbox Series X|S consoles, even though spin-off games like Minecraft Dungeons and the recently-released Minecraft Legends have been optimized for the current Xbox generation.

Earlier this year, Mojang released a preview build of Minecraft for Xbox that included ray-tracing support on Xbox Series X|S consoles, but the developer quickly pulled it. “This early prototype code has been removed from Preview and doesn’t signal near future plans to bring raytracing support to consoles,” the developer said at the time. The PC version of Minecraft does already support ray-tracing on Nvidia GPUs, and you can see the results in the video below.

Mojang holds its annual Minecraft Live event in the fall, so it’s possible we may get more details about Minecraft for Xbox Series X|S on this occasion. Microsoft will also have a big presence at the upcoming gamescom conference kicking off on August 23 in Cologne, Germany, so you never know.