I find this choice interesting. Vulkan is a sensible choice given the game is multiplatform (and of course they mention MoltenVK right in the announcement.) Despite that, I still find it interesting that a Microsoft subsidiary would make this choice given that Vulkan is a direct competitor to Direct3D and that Microsoft seemed to only begrudgingly continue to support OpenGL and wgl. (Am I hallucinating, or was there not a period of time where the graphics drivers shipped from Windows Update simply omitted OpenGL support, leaving you with only the terrible OpenGL 1.4 software renderer?)
Direct3D 12 is Vulkan under the hood. GL is the real competitor, and it provides legitimate accessibility to small developers, which is why the industry is extinguishing it.
Microsoft the publisher also cares about other OSes, and each studio does whatever they feel like including publishing on mobiles and all game consoles.
Microsoft the Windows/XBox division has other priorities.
Is Direct3D not dead? I’m seeing no major releases in years, no notable features pushed (much less teased), and no team to speak of at MS. Is there a team still? Does MS plan to do anything with it? Seems like it’s Bush-era Internet Explorer at this point.
The bedrock lineage is microsoft's attempt at microsoftifying minecraft. The team behind bedrock are responsible for showing the world the supremacy of DirectX.
Bedrock is far behind on features and is far buggier compared to java edition. A ground up C++ rewrite is noble beginnings. Unfortunately time has shown that they only planned to get it to an MVP necessary for some gross monetization tactics targeting children and not really a genuine interest in improving the tech, growing fandom goodwill, or creating new art.