Minecraft is getting a full theme park, and it has a roller coaster. That detail matters more than it might sound, because it's the difference between a branded walkthrough experience with some block-shaped gift shops and an actual destination that people will plan a day around.
Announced during Minecraft Live March 2026, Mojang Studios and Merlin Entertainments are putting £50 million (just under $70 million) into Minecraft World, set to open at Chessington World of Adventures in Greater London in 2027. According to the official press release on Merlin's site, the park will feature a world-first Minecraft coaster, interactive adventures, block-built playscapes, and themed retail and dining. Merlin also confirmed the park is being developed in collaboration with a selection of Minecraft creators, though no specific names have been announced yet.
The concept art released alongside the announcement shows wooden structures, Creepers, TNT blocks, and what appears to be a Nether-themed dining area. It's still clearly early in the design process, and the mock-ups have that aspirational quality where everything looks slightly too clean. But the bones are there. A Nether restaurant is exactly the kind of specific, lore-rooted detail that separates a good theme park area from a generic branded space, and if Merlin actually commits to that level of theming throughout, this could be something worth the trip.
Senior creative director of entertainment at Minecraft, Torfi Frans Ólafsson, said in a statement that the goal is to create somewhere you can "literally be in the Minecraft Overworld and have an adventure of your own." That's the right framing. The parks that work, and Super Nintendo World is the obvious benchmark here, succeed because they don't just slap a logo on an existing ride. They build environments that feel like you've walked into the game. Minecraft's visual identity is so distinct, so immediately recognisable, that it's actually well-suited to physical space in a way a lot of IPs aren't. The blocky aesthetic translates. You don't need to soften it or make it more "real" to make it work in three dimensions.
The First Video Game Theme Park in the UK Based on a Major IP
Minecraft World will be the first video game IP theme park to open in the United Kingdom. That's a genuine gap in the market. British fans have watched Super Nintendo World open in Osaka, Hollywood, and Singapore without anything comparable landing on home soil. A £50 million investment at an established park like Chessington, which already draws significant family audiences, gives this a real foundation rather than starting from scratch.
Credit where it's due to Mojang and Merlin for not just announcing a vague "experience zone" and calling it a day. A dedicated roller coaster is a serious commitment. Coasters are expensive, they're permanent infrastructure, and they anchor a themed area in a way that a handful of interactive kiosks simply can't. The real question is what the coaster actually does with the IP beyond surface-level branding. A mine cart run through a procedurally-inspired cave system with Creeper encounters would be brilliant. A standard coaster with Minecraft graphics on the queue line would be a waste of the licence.
The 2027 target is ambitious but not unrealistic given Chessington already exists as a working park and Merlin has the operational experience to pull this off. More details on the specific attractions are still to come, and honestly, the next announcement, whenever Merlin reveals the coaster concept properly, will tell us a lot about whether this is going to be a genuine Minecraft experience or a themed wrapper around something generic. The foundation looks promising. Now they have to build it.
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