Mojang, developer of the top-seller and one of the most influential games of all time, Minecraft, announced in Sep. 2024 that they would be switching their update style from a grander, annual release to updates with fewer additions released more periodically. They made this decision to change to keep up with the ever-growing popularity and demand for more releases from their player base.
Since their initial announcement in September, a handful of these more humble releases have been published for people to play. To kick off their debut, Mojang released 1.21.2 on Oct. 22, 2024, finally releasing the long-awaited bundles, including each dye variant. Alongside this, they changed and added a few smaller things, including retexturing Redstone Torches and Redstone items that include Redstone Torches, such as Repeaters and Comparators. They also added two new banner patterns, and Ender Pearl chunkloading.
Mojang released 1.21.4 on Dec. 3, 2024, titled, “The Garden Awakens,” adding a new biome called the Pale Garden. This new biome is extremely rare and closely resembles the pre-existing Dark Oak Forest, with the exception that these new trees are pale white and overgrown with moss of the same white saturation. In the garden lurks a deep evil, called The Creaking. This mob blends in with the trees as it has a pale log texture and it functions similarly to a Weeping Angel from Dr. Who. While only spawning at night, these lurking freaks creep up behind any unfortunate player and deal absurd amounts of damage. However, these mobs are completely stationary upon looking in their direction, rendering them obsolete. Unlike the standard monster spawning function in Minecraft where monsters spawn based on light level and player render distance, these mobs spawn similarly to mob spawners, using a new block called the Creaking Heart.
In this newfound desaturated biome, The Creaking is the only mob capable of spawning, making it feel rather empty and unnerving during the daytime. The biome includes flowers called Eyeblossoms, which resemble the eyes on The Creaking. During the daytime, these flowers have their eye closed, but at night they open and emit a warm orange glow. On top of this, they added new Resin blocks and their corresponding block family of bricks.
Following these two mini but major new updates, Mojang has released a number of Snapshots in which they are testing new mob variants for chickens, cows, pigs and sheep. Previously, Minecraft only had one type of each of these mobs, but now Mojang has added two new types for each animal. They now have new-looking variants that spawn in colder biomes, and separate ones that spawn in warmer biomes. Along with these new mobs, there are new ambient features to help liven up the overworld. This includes leaf particles that will occasionally fall from every tree type, Leaf Litter of dead leaves, making a crunchy noise upon walking on, and new Wildflowers that can be placed in a similar fashion to the Cherry Blossoms.
New plants have been added in these Snapshots to bring together that drawback to the real world, including short and tall Dry Grass, Bushes, and a pink flower that grows on top of cacti, the Cactus Flower. With this, there is one plant and addition that go hand-in-hand that players have been looking forward to since Mojang announced the Mangrove swamp, and that is Fireflies and the Firefly Bush. These fireflies aren’t actual mobs, but rather particles. Nonetheless, still an immense improvement to the rather dead-seaming swampy biomes.
With these constant Snapshots being released, it’s suspected that they will all be polished and perfected, combined into a new release. The direction that Mojang has taken with these smaller updates has proven to be more efficient, while also keeping the player base more involved and excited for what’s to come. It’s safe to say that Mojang hit the ball out of the park with this little, yet grand change that will keep Minecraft alive for generations to come.
