Summary
Minecraft1.21 looks to cast a wide net with its new features—from combat, to adventuring, to redstone. However, the lack of a strict theme could be detrimental to 1.21 when compared to priorMinecraftupdates.
1.21’s promotional material and experimental snapshots have shown off a broad selection of features. These include new trial chamber structures, a ‘crafter’ block that can automate crafting, andnew variants ofMinecraft’s copper and tuff blocks. Impacts here range from combat, to adventuring, to redstone, to construction—which is a far wider range than priorMinecraftupdates. Updates since at least 1.13’s Update Aquatic, and arguably as far back as 1.9’s Combat Update, have a had a tight focus that saw most features all coalesce around a central theme. However, trial chambers and crafter blocks seem like very disparate ideas.
Minecraft’s Next Big Update Might Stretch Itself Thin
It’s quite bizarre to see Mojang straying from a more defined theme. Of course, when the update arrives in 2024, there may be more content that ties together these ideas.Minecraft’s upcoming wolf armorwould have narrowed the lens more on combat, but that content’s been sectioned off into the 1.20.5 mini update. Due to this, there’s a real concern that 1.21 could be stretched thin—adding new content that doesn’t particularly build on what already exists in the game.
The Appeal Of Strong Themes For Minecraft Updates
Some of the most lauded updates inMinecraft’s recent history include Village & Pillage, The Nether Update, and Caves & Cliffs. These updates all stuck to a theme and changed the game accordingly, taking one aspect of the title and adding vast depth to it. The Nether Update is perhaps the best example of this; it turnedMinecraft’s Nether into a more hospitable dimension, full of creatures that interact with each other as well as vibrant new ecology. It didn’t make a series of scattershot changes across the game but to just the goings-on of one dimension, which allowed it to add far more depth and complexity. The Nether is now a fully-developed aspect of the game.
This aspect has slipped somewhat following Caves & Cliffs, with The Wild Update and Trails & Tales centering only loosely on their chosen themes. Granted, Trails & Tales did mostly stick to the idea of exploration and unearthing ancient secrets, even bringing theMinecraftmob vote’s Sniffer into the theme’s fold, but its additions were a little on the scant side. The Wild Update, on the other hand, only added one new overworld biome in the form of the mangrove swamp. While the update’s warden-focused features were great, they don’t particularly evoke the ‘wilderness’. It could’ve used at least one more biome or a few additions to existing biomes (such as the birch forest changes shown off in concept art for the update).
1.21 Could Focus On Combat and Challenge
Undoubtedly, the biggest change coming with 1.21 will be the trial chamber, so if Mojang wants a coherent theme for the update it would make sense for that structure to be a focus. Putting emphasis on the trial chamber and filling it with diverse loot and more new mobs. There could bevariants of the chamber acrossMinecraft’s biomes, encouraging the player to seek out these unique challenges. These structures could be at the forefront of shaking upMinecraft’s progression, potentially offering challenges to even those clad in full netherite.
The question of the crafter block remains, however. One way to implement it in a way that works with trail chambers could be a variant based around the block. The chambers already have features that will play with redstone, so complex puzzles that involve crafter blocks and comparators could go a long way to justifying its inclusion. Thecrafter could even get its ownMinecraftstructure, if this hypothetical theme wasn’t based on the trial chamber specifically.
