Back in November of 2024 there was a lot of excitement about the announcement that Melin Entertainment (the company behind Legoland and Alton Towers) was going to be building Minecraft attractions. These immersive areas will be built in collaboration with Minecraft developer Mojang and be built in existing Merlin locations in 2026 or 2027 in a collaboraton named, “Adventures Made Real”. It’s now 2026 and there’s still no further news related to Minecraft. Also, the Merlin parks have mostly announced other new attractions for 2026 such as Legoland Florida/California getting the Galacticoaster, Alton Towers getting the Bluey Coaster and Lego Billund getting the Minifigure Speedway Coaster. Therefore it looks like 2027 will be the year of Minecraft.

I think it’s very important to point out that these attractions will “be built in existing Merlin locations” as this narrows down the potential locations. The setup of these parks could potentially look to follow the model of the Peppa Pig Theme Park adjacent to Legoland Florida in being a separate gate or more something like the Ninjago areas of a Lego park. Merlin will be investing in excess of $110 million in the first two attractions, which will be launching in the US and the UK between 2026 and 2027. This will include the development of first-of-its-kind concepts for Minecraft-themed guest accommodation, retail, and food & beverage, alongside exciting experiences including a Minecraft-themed ride! Longer-term, Merlin will expand these experiences to other destinations globally. Merlin has a number of IP partnerships now with have with LEGO, Peppa Pig, Paw Patrol, Sony Pictures, CBeebies and others. No word on the attraction type yet, but the promotional video below clearly shows a roller coaster.

The Minecraft IP has been incredibly durable, having debuted in 2009, now 17 years ago and is the best-selling video game of all time. In fact many of the kids who played Minecraft are now adults and it could even be seen as nostalgic to this generation. Nostolgia is huge in IP with adults often wanting to relive their youth or expose their children to the characters of their own childhood. The project appears to have a healthy budget and there are many different directions this park could go as Minecraft is literally a complete Universe in and of itself. It could easily host a great dark ride or coaster as well as offer easy theming for popular flat rides. “Chicken Jockey” anyone? Hopefully we’ll hear more details about these exciting theme park additions in the coming months.