Minecraft developer Mojang has three unannounced projects in the works - and two of them will be announced, if not released, in the first half of the year.
The first project, CEO Carl Manneh tells us, is the new game from Minecraft lead Markus "Notch" Persson. His new project isn't shrouded in secrecy as such: it's just not very far along, with Persson passing the Minecraft torch to Jens Bergensten last month and duly taking a well-deserved break.
"What it is today, I don't think he knows himself," Manneh says. "We certainly don't. It's probably going to be a lot of testing and playing around to see what works."
For many, Notch is the face of Minecraft, and therefore Mojang's success, and Manneh is aware that the Swedish studio needs to establish itself as a brand in 2012. "I think Notch will always be the fixed star over a long period of time, because he's Notch," he says. "But we don't look at it that way - he gets a lot of attention, but other people in the company do too. So it's not something we're actively concerned about."
Manneh is confident that the other two projects - which he reveals will certainly be announced, and possibly even released, in the first half of 2012 - will do much to reduce the perceived reliance on Persson.
"I think that comes with the new games we're creating," he says. "They will have a big impact on Mojang over the next year. I can't talk about them, because we have NDAs with companies. Otherwise, we want to be very transparent about everything we do, but in this case we can't."
The above are extracts from a ten-page Mojang feature in our latest issue, with input from Manneh as well as co-founder Jakob Porser, newly appointed Minecraft lead Jens Bergensten and Paddy Burns of 4J Studios, which is handling the Xbox Live Arcade port. E237 should be with subscribers any day now, and on shelves next Tuesday, January 17.