What is Minecraft?

This week Microsoft released Halo 5, the latest installment of its most iconic exclusive for Xbox consoles. The adventures of Master Chief and his console cohorts, however, pale beneath the popularity of the stories created by players in the universe of Minecraft. Designed largely by a single gamer maker and purchased for billions of dollars by the software giant, Minecraft has the potential to be the Super Mario of a generation, not in how it plays but what it represents for an entire culture of video game lovers. We'll see over a dozen big name video game releases this fall, but I thought we should take a look at the game that thrives all year long. I invited Polygon's Minecraft devotee Charlie Hall to update me on the game's past, present, and future. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices