If you have kids (or you’re a kid at heart), you’ve definitely heard of Minecraft. And you probably know that a Minecraft movie is about to come out.
Now, McDonald’s has leaned heavily into the Minecraft trend with a brand-new Happy Meal and Big Mac meal extensively themed for Minecraft.
I stopped by my local McDonald’s on the day that the new Minecraft Happy Meals and Big Mac meal were released. Here’s my review.
Welcome Back, 1993
Sometimes, McDonald’s integrates characters from a new movie into their Happy Meals. That might include adding a toy from the movie to the box, or perhaps having some branding on the Happy Meal box.
For the Minecraft movie collaboration, McDonald’s has gone far deeper. Everything about the Happy Meal has been customized to reflect Minecraft concepts.
Firstly, the toy is a small box that folds out into a real-life Minecraft world. Instead of digital blocks, it includes stickers of the different materials that players of the game might use in Creative mode.
There is a Minecraft llama (I thought it looked like a toilet initially, but my son corrected me), and kids can create their own biomes by adding in the material stickers.
At the end, the whole thing folds up into a little box with a Minecraft logo that they can take with them on the go. It’s a clever toy, and it’s kind of cool to see the Minecraft universe turned into a physical item.
Many of the containers for items like fries are also customized with Minecraft logos or Minecraft signs.
In the Big Mac meal, this is most obvious. The French fries include a Minecraft crafting recipe for fries, showing a potato combined with a furnace and fire yielding French fries.
The package itself is apparently a Minecraft chest, and it also has a unique and adorable toy.
There are six in total, but I got a zombie Hamburglar.
For those who didn’t grow up in the ’90s, the Hamburglar was a beloved—if somewhat strange—little cartoon character who snuck into McDonald’s restaurants and stole burgers.
To my kids, this history is bewildering. “Why would you steal burgers when you could just steal money, which you could use to buy burgers?” they asked.
Regardless, the Hamburglar hasn’t seen the light of day in a while. So it was cool to see this icon of ’90s mashed together with a modern Minecraft mob to create a zombie. The toy was matched with a trading card describing some of its abilities.
The Best Part
One of the coolest items on the menu didn’t come in either of these meals, though. It was a special hot sauce called Nether Flame Sauce—yet another reference to Minecraft concepts.
I’m not well-versed enough in the Minecraft universe to even begin to describe the tie-in exactly. But I can describe the hot sauce.
It’s a very spicy cayenne pepper sauce, mashed up with an apricot base.
To me, it tasted a bit like an apricot jam sweet-and-sour sauce made with Cholula hot sauce. It’s far too spicy for most kids, but for adults, it’s an absolutely perfect thing to dip your French fries into.
Overall, it’s awesome to see McDonald’s embracing a modern, video game–focused movie. Back in the ’80s and ’90s, Disney movies were a big cultural thing. Now it’s video games.
McDonald’s has effortlessly made the switch, updating their Happy Meals with the iconic characters of today—and clearly creating bespoke items that are destined for the TikTok accounts of today’s digital natives.
I probably won’t get another Minecraft meal from McDonald’s for a bit, but I might have to make a copycat version of that Nether Flame Sauce at home!
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