Draft:Untitled third C418 Minecraft album

The Untitled third Minecraft album, commonly known as Minecraft: Volume 3 or Minecraft – Volume Final, is an unreleased studio album by German musician Daniel Rosenfeld, better known as C418. Rosenfeld began work on the album in 2015 and confirmed its existence in 2017, but the album has not seen release due to licensing disputes between Rosenfeld and Minecraft owner Microsoft.

Background
Daniel Rosenfeld, better known by the name C418, served as the composer and sound designer for Markus Persson's 2011 video game Minecraft. Having met on the video gaming forum TIGSource, the two decided to collaborate on an early build of the game that would become Minecraft. Under Persson's Mojang AB, Rosenfeld released two soundtrack albums for the game, Minecraft – Volume Alpha (2011) and Minecraft – Volume Beta (2013). Persson chose to commision each work from C418, with Rosenfeld retaining ownership and rights to his work for the game. In 2014, after the sale of Mojang and Minecraft to Microsoft, Rosenfeld stated in an interview with The Guardian, "The days before the sale went through - I felt betrayed by Markus. I was worried Microsoft would take my music. But ultimately I talked to the lawyers and I still own it. My music is not worth $2.5bn. And also, I’m not rich."

Composition
Daniel Rosenfeld first revealed the development of his third original soundtrack album for Minecraft in a 2015 interview with Fact Magazine, commenting, "I'll still work on Minecraft, so there'll probably be another album. In fact, it’s gonna be more ambient than the others, just as an experiment." He also noted listeners' own applications of his previous works, remarking, "I’m interested in seeing how people use music as a sleep aid, so I think on the next album I might put a bonus track on there that’s just 15 minutes of complete ambience and see what people think." Rosenfeld again expressed interest in composing an ambient bonus track for his third album in a tweet posted in December of that year.

In a 2017 tweet, the musician confirmed the album's existence and said that it was set for future release, but that work on it at that point was "still far from done". Rosenfeld additionally stated that the record would be longer than the previous two albums combined, which in total clocks in at over 3 hours and 18 minutes. Rosenfeld additionally confirmed on Twitter that the third album will not be called "Minecraft – Volume Gamma", deviating from the Greek Alphabet naming convention used in the previous two Minecraft albums he composed. Of the work Rosenfeld did on the third volume, he commented, "When I started making a third minecraft album, I didn't expect it to have this much work involved. I think I'm seeing the end of the tunnel?"

Release
On 16 July 2018, three new singles from the album were added to Minecraft for the game's "Update Aquatic". It marked the first new contributions from Rosenfeld to Minecraft since Minecraft - Volume Beta in 2013. The three tracks were released digitally and on streaming platforms from August – "Dragon Fish" on 9 August, "Shuniji" on 10 November, and "Axolotl" on 12 December 2018, each track containing a piece of cover art from Rosenfeld's third soundtrack album.

Citing licensing issues with Microsoft, C418 has not released his third soundtrack album for Minecraft. On 8 January 2021, Rosenfeld was asked in an interview with music critic Anthony Fantano whether or not the third volume of the soundtrack was still in production. Rosenfeld responded, saying, "I have something — I consider it finished — but things have become complicated, especially as Minecraft is now a big property, so I don't know."