Minecraft Dungeons II ARG

The Minecraft Dungeons II alternate reality game or ARG is an ongoing marketing campaign created to promote the release of Minecraft Dungeons II. It takes the form of an interactive alternate reality game (ARG) involving several different forms of media.

The ARG began on March 21, 2026 alongside the release of the Minecraft Dungeons II – Announce Trailer during Minecraft LIVE – March 2026.

During the Minecraft Dungeons II – Announce Trailer, a QR code briefly flashes on screen at around 0:13. Scanning the code leads to an aka.ms link opening the minecraft.net/en-us/0x7370696365776f6f64 page. The URL slug "0x7370696365776f6f64" is the hex code for "spicewood", the internal codename for the game. The page contains the unlisted YouTube video TJG KIF RDE LSRD. The title of the video translates to "UNL OCK [sic] THE PATH" when using a keyword cipher with "spicewood" as the keyword.

The video starts with a black screen and the notes A, C, and E playing. Afterwards, a silhouette of a warden-like creature with an elongated neck appears to sing a melody with the notes A E C# D G# G𝄮 D# B♭ playing and colors flashing in the background.

Ahead of Minecraft Live – May 2026, the official Minecraft YouTube channel posted a series of images with a color caption asking viewers to find the correct order. Later that day, various official Minecraft social media posted videos with one of them being named "Incorrect Note Videos".^{[note 1]} These videos started with five notes being played, each differing by one note. At the end of each video, three greyed out note glyphs show on screen.

After the incorrect note videos were released,^[when?] until June 7, 2026, clicking on the "Dungeons II" tab of the Minecraft launcher showed a looping animation of a portal with eight noteblocks on screen. Clicking or pressing the noteblock's corresponding number on a keyboard played a unique note, with a corresponding glyph (reffered to as a glitch ruin in the launcher files) appearing on screen after playing the same noteblock five times in a row^{[note 2][verify]}. These glitch runes correspond to letters and numbers written in illageralt.

Playing the sequence (1, 3, 7, 6, 5, 2, 4, 8) caused all eight notes to play at once, the melody played to be repeated, and the portal to be ignited with a countdown to June 7 at 16:59:59 UTC in the middle of the portal. This was one second before the start time of the 2026 Xbox Games Showcase, where the Minecraft Dungeons II – Reveal Trailer premiered. The sequence that causes this corresponds to:

• The last eight notes of the video WHAT STIRS IN THE DEEP DARK?
• The notes the creature in the TJG KIF RDE LSRD video sings backwards
• Putting the notes in rainbow order
• Up to the first five notes,^{[note 3]} the nth note of the sequence is the nth note that plays in four out of the five incorrect note videos.

The glitch runes that emit from the noteblocks, when arranged in the order of the sequence, spell out "1NF3C7ED", which is leetspeak for "INFECTED". Playing the first or last three notes of the sequence in reverse (7, 3, 1 or 8, 4, 2, respectively) would cause souls to be emited from the last played block. Playing the first six notes correctly with the seventh incorrect caused a faint noise resembling the creature in the TJG KIF RDE LSRD video to play. Playing the first seven notes correctly with the last incorrect caused a similar but slightly higher pitched noise to play. The sounds did not play if the portal was already activated, but pressing the "X" button in the bottom left of the animation made the portal reset.

The launcher patch notes for June 2, 2026 had the following line under the Features & Improvements section: "Think you've found all the secrets the music holds on the Dungeons 2 page? The noteblocks hide one more secret. Listen Close To Another Sequence..." This corresponded with playing notes in the sequence (6, 5, 2, 7, 8) which caused the unlisted BGUQJ MTVU VKORZY video to embed and play in the launcher. This feature was not present when the launcher note block challenge was first released.

When the timer finished on June 7, 2026, it stayed at "00:00" for one second before being replaced with a stylized video play button. Clicking the button opened the original TJG KIF RDE LSRD video's YouTube page in the default browser.

After the reveal trailer premiered at the Xbox Games Showcase, a launcher update rolled out which made clicking the "Dungeons II" launcher tab show the ignited portal with the video play button by default. The noteblocks were removed from underneath the animated portal, but were moved to a separate, inanimated portal when scrolling down to the bottom of the page. The noteblock are still in the same order, but have an updated texture and animation for notes being played.

Playing the notes in the original opening sequence no longer has any discernible effect, even if the X button is pressed to extinguish the portal. Similarly, playing only the first six or seven notes correctly no longer has a special effect, nor did playing the first or last three notes backwards.^{[1][better source needed]} However, playing the sequence (6, 5, 2, 7, 8) still causes the BGUQJ MTVU VKORZY video to embed and play in the bottom portal of the launcher, as well as glitch runes emitting after playing the same note five times.

By the next day,^[when?] another launcher update again changed the texture of notes emitting from blocks, when before they emitted in pairs.^{[citation needed]} Playing the first three notes and last three notes of the original sequence reversed made it so souls would be emitted from the last played note again.

An interactive note block challenge took place at TwitchCon Rotterdam 2026.

On May 30, 2026, the video "WHAT STIRS IN THE DEEP DARK?" was posted on the Minecraft YouTube channel.^[2] It features a green and blue note playing, followed by the sequence used to open the portal in the launcher playing on eight sucessive noteblocks. Upon playing a note, a beacon-like beam with the corresponding color emits from the noteblock, with the last eight notes having their beacon beam persist after play. A portal behind the noteblocks activates after the sequence finishes, and a few loud banging sounds synchronised with camera shaking play in between a low creaking noise. "JUNE7" then appears in glitch runes in the portal, accompanied by a scream-like noise and more camera shaking.

Later on May 30, the Minecraft Dungeons X (formerly known as Twitter) account tweeted the singular word "vEqOcCIPVlY"^[3] which was the ID for the unlisted video youtube.com/watch?v=vEqOcCIPVlY. The video can also be opened by playing the sequence (6, 5, 2, 7, 8) in the launcher. The video depicts a twisted warden, with the title of the video being "BGUQJ MTVU VKORZY". Treating the phrase "1NF3C7ED" as the key for a Vigenère cipher^{[note 4]} decodes the phrase to "ASONG FORT HELOST" [sic], with modified spacing reading "A SONG FOR THE LOST". Another solution is a Vigenère cipher using "FOR THE LOST" as the keyword which gives "BOGDDHFE ASONG FORT HELOST [sic]". The word "BOGDDHFE" being the key used to encrypt it back to "BGUQJ MTVU VKORZY".

• minecraft.net/en-us/0x7370696365776f6f64 is excluded from the Minecraft.net sitemap
• The last three notes of the noteblock sequence that opens the portal are the first three notes of the TJG KIF RDE LSRD video.