[white-flame]

There's RPG-ish & enchantment mechanics to build up better tools & armor, different biomes to get different resources from, NPC villages to trade/upgrade/protect, and various enemies with varying drops, including in bases/dungeons/strongholds.

The common game loops are "I want to build X, so I need to find area Y to defeat mob Z to get the resources", and "I need to mine resource X, so I need to get resource Y to build tool Z to be able to do so", as well as building resource farms and some rudimentary automation.

So there is enough structured activity to drive actual gameplay beyond just having a pile of virtual blocks to stack, but it contains an additional unrestricted sandbox mode as well.

[Valgrim]

For some people, the sandbox mode is where the fun is. They ditch entirely the survival part of the game and simply like to build things in creative mode. Some people build houses and voxel art, others create complex mechanisms up to functionnal logic gates and computers, and others just like to explore the fractal world.