Five years after its initial unveiling, developer Mojang has confirmed development on Minecraft Dungeons has reached its end, and that the game's 1.17 update - which released ten months ago, back in November 2022 - will be its last.

Minecraft Dungeons, a collaboration between Mojang and developer Double Eleven, was well-received when it launched in May 2020 - Eurogamer's Tom Phillips called it a "strong extension to the franchise, and by far the most promising Minecraft spin-off released to date" at the time.

By the time February 2021 rolled around, Minecraft Dungeons had amassed over 10m players, and was popular enough that a second season pass of DLC content was announced after its first came to and end. Mojang then announced it would introduce a live-service style seasonal model - complete with battle pass - as 2021 drew to a close.

Three "Seasonal Adventures" were released by between December that year and October 2022, with a 1.17 balance and bug fixing patch arriving a month later. And now, almost a year on, Mojang has confirmed last November's update was its last.

"Every journey has an end," the studio wrote in a post announcing the news on its website. "As 1.17 was Minecraft Dungeons' final update, our team has now moved on to new projects that continue to explore experiences in the Minecraft universe. This means that there are no new features or content updates planned for the game."

"We do intend to continue bringing new experiences to the Minecraft universe and give our team the freedom to keep exploring the types of games they're passionate about," the studio continued, "just as they did with Dungeons!"

Despite the end of its development, Minecraft Dungeons will remain available to play, and the ever-changing layout of its Tower will continue to rotate. Mojang also revealed that, in the three and a half years since its release, Minecraft Dungeons has surpassed 25m players.