With Minecraft now out in full and getting post-launch updates, Scrolls in deep development with a release later this year and Cobalt - the first third party game published by Mojang already playable, what's next from the Swedish indie studio?

As it turns out, quite a lot. Three new games are in development and two of them Mojang will be releasing, or at least unveiling, in the first half of this year.

In the latest issue of Edge magazine, which hits store shelves on January 17th, there's a 10-page feature all about Mojang, the studio created by Markus "Notch" Persson and responsible for Minecraft. In it, Mojang CEO Carl Manneh reveals that Mojang is working on three unannounced projects, two of which will be unveiled and/or released in the first half of this year.

So, to those fans of Mojang wondering what their small team is doing with only two people working on Minecraft and everyone else working on Scrolls, that may not be the case and we'll find out why soon. Notch often referred to another secret project on Twitter, something we knew was separate from Minecraft,  Scrolls and Cobalt, when he handed over the Minecraft reins to Jens “Jeb” Bergensten in December. At the time, Notch said the following, hinting at a new game, but he mentioned other secret projects prior to that as well:

 “Personally, I will now rest for a while, then get back to work refreshed and eager. I’ll be helping out with Minecraft, of course, but also starting work on some new project.”

What that project is, Notch is still trying to figure out, according to Manneh.

"What it is today, I don't think he knows himself. We certainly don't. It's probably going to be a lot of testing and playing around to see what works."

Manneh continues to explain that although Notch is seen as the face, the celebrity behind Mojang, the team doesn't look at it that way and these upcoming games will certainly change that perception. Their goal is the make Mojang a brand in 2012 with Scrolls and these other projects. As for what they are, we don't know if any of them are worked on in-house or if they will be more third party games published by Mojang, something the company is planning to branch out to, starting with Cobalt.

"I think that comes with the new games we're creating. 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."

Is Manneh referring to other developers as companies or is he talking about bigger companies, potentially about console games? Minecraft is coming to Xbox 360 as an exclusive downloadable Kinect-enabled game - could we see other downloadables on the platform or potentially, other consoles?

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Source: Edge

Header image edited from wallpaper by MineZone.ru