Minecraft Live 2021: A Look at The Wild Update

Now it’s the big moment let’s talk to Agnes about the next update welcome back Agnes thank you how’s the show felt for you super good like I think it’s a really fun show and also of course we’ve shown so many exciting things absolutely I I mean I’m feeling quite nostalgic

Since this is number 10 and I have to say I was the seventh employee the first woman on the team and when I see you leading Minecraft I just feel so excited about where we’re going that was very sweet of you and of course we money that lead it together but I

Like and like the creative lead and I’m yeah I’m super happy about that but it feels quite surreal because you know I also just used to be a Minecraft player and love this game and it’s it’s yeah yeah I’m very happy and lucky to be here

Yes I think we all feel that way and it’s so cool having so many people on the team who play and love it and care about it and like we all feel like I mean we are part of the community too yes we definitely are and now Agnes you

Are going to reveal to us what the next update is yes okay so the next update is called The Wild update laughs The Wild update sounds very very intriguing so what is it so the word wild mainly means like two things for us so the first thing is like beautiful nature and the second thing is like really scary challenges and Adventures oh that sounds awesome and so what we’re gonna do is we’re gonna have

Some of our gameplay designers come and tell us more about specific things about the Wild update because there’s these different parts to it and we have the first one here which is our deep dark expert Brandon hello hi Brandon welcome thank you so we’ve moved the deep dark into this

Update can you talk to us more about why yes I mean one of the biggest things about the Deep dog and the water and the skull is that it’s just expanded it’s gotten bigger and we’ve we really wanted to make sure that we did this right and

That we didn’t just rush it that includes even unique loot inside the deep dark as well and yeah um we also want to make sure that we sorry let’s actually look at some of the new things that we have in it right now which is the ancient cities that’s

Awesome I can’t wait oh wow foreign Foreign wow it’s like both beautiful and terrifying at the same like I have so many emotions when I look at the deep dark biome yes I mean we really didn’t want the deep dark biome to just be you know caves or just skull spread around

We wanted to add a bit more mystery to it um and you know there’s this ancient city and what is it doing that we’re not going to tell the players we’re just gonna let them go throughout and explore and see what they come to um and there’s even this like ancient

Structure in the middle of every single City and it’s got something interesting about it that you’re going to have to explore in game it’s really cool I I like it feels like a place you want to explore yes I love that it really deepens the mystery of Minecraft like Minecraft is all about

Player stories and deep dark definitely inspires the storytelling I think that’s so cool and so last year you showed us the skulk sensor but I know you’ve been working on it a little skulk family it’s a school family like is it yeah maybe they’re not so cute they’re not so

Friendly no yeah last year we focused a lot on the skulk sensor but since then we’ve kind of been trying to figure out what do all the different blocks in this skulk family do and one of them actually is something called a skull Catalyst and the main thing about the Scott catalyst

Is it’s actually what causes the sculpt to spread as you can see here whenever a mob dies such as a zombie near the skull Catalyst it actually spreads the skulk underneath it and the amount is based on how much xp that zombie would have dropped wow so

You know the deep dark it’s kind of overgrown with all the sculpt blocks so that means that lots of mobs must have died there quite a lot yes oh and as you can see here when you mine some of the sculpt blocks you actually get Enchanting points

Yes and of course if you still want to get some of the blocks for decoration or something you can just use a silk touch and then we have the skunk so when this block is activated it’s gonna give that really scary shriek sound that you heard now and it also

Gives this Darkness effects it’s like pulsating Darkness you can even see now when you’re sneaking and you step on a skulk sensor even sneaking it will activate wow okay definitely not a friendly family and I will say to our younger viewers in a in a minute we’re going to show you a clip

That’s a little scarier but I just I mean Brandon those have so many things that players can do with them like what do you imagine them doing I think the skull catalyst is going to be really interesting because you know when you could create a mob farm with the like

Through the Tech Community um usually when a mob dies it doesn’t drop XP unless you the player actually kills it so with this you might be able to create some sort of XP farm there’s lots of opportunities and you can be like it experiences for other players like imagine building like a haunted

Mansion or a really dark forest and then you have the street it’s terrifying and then you know when players out working and then they activate the shriek and they’re like that’s amazing or you do that all around your world and just whenever anyone’s visiting I’m not gonna miss with your

Words shriekers are just shrieking we have a community question for you hi it’s Jameson from Germany and my question is what was inspiration behind the shrika oh yeah I mean that’s an interesting question from the art side we actually had the inspiration behind the human larynx which is like the vocal cord of

Vocal structure or something just something that represents kind of creating sounds and from the gameplay perspective we wanted to make sure that first of all the warden spawns in a unique way and also in a way that you can avoid it so usually you can kind of

Sneak around and as long as you don’t activate the sculpt shriekers then the warden won’t come but if you do make too many noises and the sculpture activates too many times the warden will come foreign Foreign [Applause] foreign wow there is a lot there Brandon definitely a lot to unpack I mean the first thing is that the warden actually emerges underground so that means you know that wardens are kind of in the deep dark in the walls under the floor and it also has developed a sense of

Smell so of course you can sneak around and try to be you know quiet and not to get detected but unfortunately the warden’s still going to be able to sniff you out and find where you are and if it sniffs you while you’re really close by then it’s going to start noticing you

Wait so basically the warden is like smell that it’s happening and just like going for the pretty much yes it’s not going to be fun for you no and I love that I think that like a sneaking gameplay because we haven’t really had it before so you know we are in the deep

Dark everything’s super dark and you’re sneaking trying to find a Treasures trying to avoid the wording I think it’s something really exciting with that it’s really really cool I mean and I think you have definitely upped the terrifying level Brandon and I just love how much you’ve expanded the deep dark to feel

It’s so it’s so immersive yes definitely it’s really amazing thank you so much for joining us and and scaring us half to death no worries that’s my job yeah he’s our expert like if you want to do something scarce like Grandma thanks Brandon thank you so much

So Agnes the deep dark is one part this sort of very adventurous side of the Wild update which the name is starting to really become clear after talking to Brandon and then the other part you said is really this more of that beauty and you know the atmosphere of Minecraft yes

So we want to like celebrate the Wilderness of Minecraft and one thing we want to focus on is immersion so when you play Minecraft we really wanted to feel that you’re inside the Minecraft world actually like we are now so beautiful and we also want to focus or have focus on biome diversity

So we want to find like a unique identity for different biomes for example the Birch Forest as you can see in this beautiful concept art so in the Birch Force you want it to be like light and peaceful and the Sun reaches the ground the trees are taller and the

Flower flowers things like that it’s really beautiful it looks very Swedish in the Birch Forest that’s true that’s actually very Swedish for us yeah it’s gorgeous and then you have so you want to add more atmosphere to the different biomes but there’s one biome that you

Want I mean I would say you’re giving it quite an overhaul it’s getting a lot more in the wild State yes that’s true and that’s the swamp our team is just so amazing it’s such a beautiful concept art and as you can see here the atmosphere is really different

From from the Birch Forest as well it really is it’s amazing so we have another one of our gameplay designers here and our swamp expert Corey welcome Corey hi Corey hey absolutely wild to be here oh no Corey the puns are so quick let’s just start it’s Corey after also

Yeah it’s very on brand so you’re gonna tell us about all of the ex I mean there’s a lot of exciting things coming to the swamp so what are we getting yes there are a lot of awesome things coming the first of which is the boat with the chest in it foreign

Part two we have even wider Rivers so it’s easier to travel water it’s just gonna be like extra useful yeah and like in the aquifers as well yes like when you go rafting in the case you can like put your diamonds in the chest in your boat oh it’s really amazing and you’ve

Been working on what I think now will be my favorite tree in Minecraft yes we are adding The Mangrove tree to Minecraft so as you can see here this is a propagule and propagules grow from mangrove trees they’re actually like ready to grow uh Mangrove many mangroves

Growing from The Mangrove and you can see here the mangrove Tree Grows propped up on root blocks it has vines hanging down from the leaves the propagules are actually growing underneath the leaves they actually grow from the leaves themselves and I really like how the property girls are looking here and okay

I’m just gonna nerd out on topicals okay so in real life the propagules grow like I said from The Mangrove tree and then when they fall into the water or like let’s say they fall into water they could float for up to a year before they plant themselves in the the like water

Under underneath the water or on land wherever they happen to land and mangrove trees themselves are actually amazing for like local ecosystems fighting climate change for local communities they’re just super trees and I’m really really excited that we’re adding them to Minecraft that’s awesome and this is the first sapling that you

Can plant underwater yeah you can plant it under water and on land as well that’s so cool when you first showed me the mangroves and you talked about your favorite thing the propagules I actually remember playing in mangroves in Florida and we would use them to like write in

This the sand because they’re super cool so seeing them in Minecraft is just so so exciting and of course where there’s a new tree there must be a new wood type yes the mangroves do come with the new boot type and like always when we add a new tree we are so happy

Like we get so many questions from the community like will there be a new wood type and and therefore we’re so happy that we were able to add a new type for the mangroves and look at it I think it’s really pretty and you also don’t see like all

The blocks here it’s gonna be like a full set for the root types economy like doors and tractors and so on gorgeous I love it I’m like I’m so excited about mangoes but I just need to mention another thing because we we decided to go with like really big roots

And I think those are so cool and we actually prototype quite a lot back and forth and it was a bit tricky to decide how the road should look like as you see in this picture here but now I’m so happy that we went with the like multi-block routes because for example

When you like go with a boat and then you can go under the mangroves and I think that adds such a nice feeling to it yeah like in this picture it’s really nice that’s what I’m sorry that’s beautiful I really agree and like when I was testing I really loved that feeling

Of like being underneath it being yeah like this this huge feeling and I wanted more I wanted to be surrounded by mangroves so I was like hmm why don’t I just make a mangrove swamp biome where I’m completely surrounded by them so as you can see in this video walking around

You’re just completely surrounded in the mangrove swamp it’s just mangroves as far as the eye can see just like in real life and you have all the mangroves propped up on their Roots growing in the water so you can take your boat underneath like Agnes likes and you’re just completely surrounded by the

Awesome beauty of it it’s so beautiful oh and I mean during the sunset every time I was testing I would actually like pause the date night cycle just to watch the sunset in the mangrove swamp it was super beautiful that’s absolutely gorgeous I noticed that that was not dirt good eye Lydia

That was wet dirt otherwise known as mud that’s amazing so you’ve actually added mud to do something really cool yeah so we’re adding really cool renewability mechanics to Mud the first of which is if you take a dirt block and pour a water bottle on it then you can get more

Mud and then the other one is if you take your mud block and you stick it on top of the drip Stone it will sort of like drip the water out of the mud and eventually dried out which turns into clay I love the renewable clay like I

Always need more bricks so perfect yeah your local Mason isn’t going to be super happy with you though that’s actually true I I have this one Mason that’s Diamond Tear medicine in my Village and I always check with them you’re taking a village upset now but still renewable clay yeah

It’s really really cool and you’re also using mud to make a new block yes we’re also adding mud bricks so mud bricks are really really exciting like building block and as you can see here the the Brick texture is actually different than the other stone bricks

That we have in the game so they’re sort of smaller more compact but it is really cool like to build with it matches a lot of different block sets and I I’m really excited to build with them love the look of them they’re all so beautiful we have a Creator question

For the two of you um I’m so excited they asked this question because I really wanted to answer it so the main reason that I wanted to add mud bricks to the game is that I really wanted people to feel like they’re okay all around the world there are houses

Built out of mud bricks so many people around the the world have houses buildings using mud bricks and I really wanted people who are playing Minecraft to feel like they could build their home and feel like they’re at home in Minecraft so really glad we got to add

Them for that it was amazing yes I mean it’s so important for us that like everyone feels equally welcome when playing Minecraft all that is that is absolutely amazing now so we have like amazing new trees we have mud everywhere we definitely need something very cute yes well very cute and quite Derpy

Because we’re adding frogs They are cute and Derpy that’s the perfect description of them the crooking is amazing and did you see the one that jumped like backwards one fell in the water frogs and they do like they do love to jump around and especially on lily pads and actually also on big drip Leaf because I

Mean the big drip leaves kind of look like lily pads but the funny thing with that is then when they jump on top of the big drip leaves it’s gonna tilt and then they fall down one of them did it just maybe it’s a like frog slide and you’re adding another little little

Tiny creature to this update yes the fireflies so you can see them roaming around adding a lot of Ambience to the swamp making it feel just nice and cozy at night but really my favorite part of them is just making the world come to life like feeling like there is life

Going on all around you and oh yeah also they’re frog food yeah I forgot to mention that they’re frog food four five flies yeah but look how happy that frog is yeah and they’re beautiful frog food so you can both enjoy them in the atmosphere and the frogs get to eat so

That’s you know now we’re calling them fireflies but Corey is that what you called them growing up actually no we called them lightning bugs I did too and in Swedish it’s it’s actually literally translates to fireflies okay it’s very interesting it became like a lot of people talking about what you

Called it growing up but we’re really excited to have fireflies or lightning bugs in the game I want to know more about baby frogs yes so you know old baby mobs in Minecraft are just like tiny versions of the grown-ups but with frogs we’re actually adding tadpoles foreign

Yes and you can pick them up in a bucket yes and that’s actually extra helpful for the tadpoles because we have frog variants and when a tadpole grow up it will pick a variant depending on the temperature in the biome it grows up in so for example if it grows up in a

Really cold place it’s going to turn into snowy frog yeah as you can see here so the frogs have came like two main systems one is the tadpole system and the other one is the cold-blooded system so the frogs are like the first cold-bodied animal in Minecraft

And in real life there actually are frog variants that pick a color depending on like or they adapt their color depending on temperature and we wanted to have that in Minecraft we wanted to like minecraftify it so therefore the tadpole is going to pick a variant instead depending on on the temperature that’s

So cool and there are three variants it’s gonna be free Okay so we’ve seen two what’s the third one the third one is the tropical frog so let’s say you were venturing out into the desert or the jungle and you take your your tadpole with you and if it

Grows up there it’ll turn into a lovely tropical frog and what I really love about the tropical frogs is how just relaxed they look and they like blending into the sand almost they’re just so relaxed chill in there yeah and I think there was a reason that they

Were yes there is a reason that they are white so like I was reading a lot about frogs oh wait that’s something we read up a lot it’s super fun because we can be really geeky and then I learned about the real life frog that’s called gray

Foam Nest tree frog and live for example in Angola Botswana and Kenya and that frog can actually turn Almost White to avoid overheating so that’s like the inspiration for the tropical frog in Minecraft I love all three of them and you didn’t so you have these different color variations but you also have

Something else special about the frogs yes so each frog variant’s gonna have something unique that will be useful for the players but we actually don’t even know what that is yet because we are working on the frogs right now that is so cool so Corey which frog is your favorite

Oh it’s got to be the snowy frog it looks so cozy oh I’m I’m tropical frog I’m very interested to see which one the community loves the most or none of them all of them yeah exactly thank you so much for joining us Corey and taking us

Into a deep dive of all really cool swamp things yeah happy to be here thank you Corey thank you Corey she’s gonna hop on out of here I like that though this is quite an awesome update and I mean I really see the name for the Wild

Update you get a bit of everything in it yes and I love the contrast yeah as you can see in this pretty concept art it’s really like that beautiful nature and the super terrifying deep dark and I love that contrast between these two things it’s absolutely amazing