Minecraft Dungeons' dev team was originally inspired by Legend of Zelda, but has since drawn more from Gauntlet and others

When Minecraft Dungeons first started out as a project for the 3DS, the dev team behind it was drawing a lot from the Legend of Zelda series. As development went on, the team decided to move on from 3DS plans and create something for consoles. With that, a shift in inspiration also came. While Zelda still has some of its DNA in this game, other titles have provided bigger influences. Minecraft Dungeons game director Måns Olson shared those inspirations in an interview with USGamer.

"If you look at inspirations now, it's closer in terms of gameplay to games like Diablo, Torchlight, and Gauntlet and also the cooperative experience is pulling a lot from modern first-person shooter cooperative games like Left 4 Dead and [Warhammer: End Times - Vermintide]. So absolutely there's been things that have been either implemented and then changed, or designed on paper, but that never made it into the game."