This year's annual Minecraft show, Minecraft Live, has concluded, with a host of news and announcements, including which mob has been chosen by the community to be added to the game.
Minecraft Live 2021, hopefully the last year without in-person events, was a two-hour long show made by Mojang featuring all things Minecraft.
The pre-show featured many community members from around the world, including Mumbo Jumbo, Smajor, and Jazzghost.
Mob vote
This year's mob vote gave the community three options to choose from:
- the glare, which helps you find which areas are dark enough for hostile mobs to spawn by becoming grumpy when it's too dark;
- the allay, which when given an item goes and collects any more of that item it can find nearby and drops them off at a music box;
- and the copper golem, which can be built by a player and likes to press buttons, and can freeze into a statue.
The glare came in last, receiving only 11.2% in the first round of voting and was eliminated.
The copper golem came second, receiving 37.8% of the vote in the first round and then 45.7% in the second round.
And the community has spoken: in first place is the allay, with 51% in the first round and 54.3% in the second, becoming the next community mob to be added to the game.
Update news
The first segment gave a recap of the soon-to-be-released 1.18 Caves & Cliffs Part II update, which revamps both underground caves and aboveground mountains.
But the update players were waiting to hear about was the following major update, version 1.19.
At the end of the show Mojang announced the Wild Update, focusing on nature above the ground and creepyness below the ground. The update is set to release on all platforms next year.
Note that all footage shown for upcoming updates is still a work in progress and may be subject to change.
Deep dark
The Wild Update includes some features previously set to be added in Caves & Cliffs Part II, specifically the underground 'deep dark' biome. This can be found at the bottom of the world and give you spooky challenges to try and overcome.
The deep dark contains sculk catalysts, which detect when a mob has died nearby and spreads sculk blocks to nearby rock. It also contains the sculk shreaker, which detects movement and creates a loud wailing noise and gives a pulsating Darkness status effect to anyone nearby.
In the deep dark generates the deep dark city, a spooky green- and gray-themed structure where the warden may patrol. The warden pops out of the ground if you make too much noise and can kill in two hits. It can also detect if you get too close too it.
Mangrove swamp
The swamp biome will receive an a new variant, the mangrove swamp, adding mangroves, mud, frogs and fireflies. The swamp came second in the biome vote of Minecon Live 2019.
Mangroves start from a small shoot and grow into a medium-sized tree with vines and thick roots. The addition of mangroves adds a new tree and wood type along with a new variant of all related wooden blocks.
A new method of transporting items will also be implemented, allowing you to place boats in chests to transfer many items across a large area more quickly. Doing so currently has remained a pain for over a decade now.
The mud block generates naturally in the mangrove swamp but can also be created by pouring a water bottle onto dirt. Mud, when placed above a dropstone block, will slowly be drained of its moisture and turn into clay. Mud can also be crafted into mud bricks.
To give life to the new swamps, frogs have been added, as well as their food source, tiny fireflies. Frogs start life as tadpoles, found in the ocean, which can be picked up in a bucket. There are different types of frog, dependent on temperature when growing up, such as the snowy frog or tropical frog. Each frog type has a unique ability.
Other news
Minecraft will be coming to Xbox Game Pass for PC on 2 November, including both the Java and Bedrock editions and many other games.
New Seasonal Adventures have been announced for Minecraft Dungeons, featuring new rewards, pets, skins and emotes.