PillagerBench: Benchmarking LLM-Based Agents in Competitive Minecraft Team Environments
On the map: LLM agents and tool use → Reinforcement learning for LLM agents
Abstract (arXiv)
LLM-based agents have shown promise in various cooperative and strategic reasoning tasks, but their effectiveness in competitive multi-agent environments remains underexplored. To address this gap, we introduce PillagerBench, a novel framework for evaluating multi-agent systems in real-time competitive team-vs-team scenarios in Minecraft. It provides an extensible API, multi-round testing, and rule-based built-in opponents for fair, reproducible comparisons. We also propose TactiCrafter, an LLM-based multi-agent system that facilitates teamwork through human-readable tactics, learns causal dependencies, and adapts to opponent strategies. Our evaluation demonstrates that TactiCrafter outperforms baseline approaches and showcases adaptive learning through self-play. Additionally, we analyze its learning process and strategic evolution over multiple game episodes. To encourage further research, we have open-sourced PillagerBench, fostering advancements in multi-agent AI for competitive environments.
Key facts. Cited by 4 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026). Placed in Reinforcement learning for LLM agents, one of 16 directions in LLM agents and tool use. Builds on 17 of its 26 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 7 Sep 2025.
Builds on
17 of 26 references.
Closest ancestors · 5
Same direction, newest first
- 2024ADAM: An Embodied Causal Agent in Open-World Environments29 Oct
- 2024MineLand: Simulating Large-Scale Multi-Agent Interactions with Limited Multimodal Senses and Physical Needs28 Mar
- 2023Ghost in the Minecraft: Generally Capable Agents for Open-World Environments via Large Language Models with Text-based Knowledge and Memory25 May
- 2023Voyager: An Open-Ended Embodied Agent with Large Language Models25 May
- 2023Do Embodied Agents Dream of Pixelated Sheep: Embodied Decision Making using Language Guided World Modelling28 Jan
Other references · 12
- 2022Chain-of-Thought Prompting Elicits Reasoning in Large Language Modelscited by 12,459
- 2023A Survey of Large Language Modelscited by 2,576
- 2023A Survey on Large Language Model based Autonomous Agentscited by 2,242
- 2023MetaGPT: Meta Programming for A Multi-Agent Collaborative Frameworkcited by 1,808
- 2023The Rise and Potential of Large Language Model Based Agents: A Surveycited by 1,439
- 2023AgentVerse: Facilitating Multi-Agent Collaboration and Exploring Emergent Behaviorscited by 598
- 2019The StarCraft Multi-Agent Challengecited by 597
- 2022Video PreTraining (VPT): Learning to Act by Watching Unlabeled Online Videoscited by 345
- 2019MineRL: A Large-Scale Dataset of Minecraft Demonstrationscited by 215
- 2023LLM-Coordination: Evaluating and Analyzing Multi-agent Coordination Abilities in Large Language Modelscited by 68
- 2024VillagerAgent: A Graph-Based Multi-Agent Framework for Coordinating Complex Task Dependencies in Minecraftcited by 35
- 2024FightLadder: A Benchmark for Competitive Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learningcited by 13
Built on by
Citing papers per year: 2025: 2; 2026: 2.
4 papers.
- 2025Benchmarking Foundation Models with Retrieval-Augmented Generation in Olympic-Level Physics Problem Solvingcited by 1
- 2026Multi-agent Framework for Time-Sensitive Complementary Collaboration in Minecraftcited by 1
- 2025Single-Agent Scaling Fails Multi-Agent Intelligence: Towards Foundation Models with Native Multi-Agent Intelligencecited by 0
- 2026Towards a Science of Collective AI: LLM-based Multi-Agent Systems Need a Transition from Blind Trial-and-Error to Rigorous Sciencecited by 0
- 2026Multi-agent Framework for Time-Sensitive Complementary Collaboration in Minecraft14 Jun 2026
- 2026Towards a Science of Collective AI: LLM-based Multi-Agent Systems Need a Transition from Blind Trial-and-Error to Rigorous Science5 Feb 2026
- 2025Single-Agent Scaling Fails Multi-Agent Intelligence: Towards Foundation Models with Native Multi-Agent Intelligence9 Dec 2025
- 2025Benchmarking Foundation Models with Retrieval-Augmented Generation in Olympic-Level Physics Problem Solving1 Oct 2025
Similar, not cited
Close in wording, no citation either way
- 2024TeamCraft: A Benchmark for Multi-Modal Multi-Agent Systems in Minecraft
- 2025Collaborating Action by Action: A Multi-agent LLM Framework for Embodied Reasoning
- 2025MultiAgentBench: Evaluating the Collaboration and Competition of LLM agents
- 2025DSGBench: A Diverse Strategic Game Benchmark for Evaluating LLM-based Agents in Complex Decision-Making Environments
- 2025Benchmarking LLMs' Swarm intelligence
- 2026SMAC-Talk: A Natural Language Extension of the StarCraft Multi-Agent Challenge for Large Language Models
- 2024SwarmBrain: Embodied agent for real-time strategy game StarCraft II via large language models
- 2022MineDojo: Building Open-Ended Embodied Agents with Internet-Scale Knowledge