Minecraft is a game that needs no introduction. Everyone with an Internet connection has at least heard of the game. It is one of the most staggeringly successful video games ever made. This silly block-building survival game dominated the 2010's and still has a prominent fandom in the 2020's. And yet I never reviewed it properly. So let's amend that oversight and finally discuss Minecraft fully.
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| Minecraft's official box art, as of 2024. Image found on Wikipedia.org |
For anyone living under a rock, Minecraft is a first person survival adventure game made by Mojang, which takes place in a world where everything is made of blocks. The trees are blocks, the mountains are blocks, even the animals are blocks. You play as a person made of blocks. You can customize your blocky persona with a variety of costumes called "Skins." The default Skin gives your character the name of Steve, though this admittedly isn't that important since the game lacks any conventional story mode.
Speaking of story modes, Minecraft Story Mode is one of three spin off games based on the original game (the other two being Minecraft Dungeons and Minecraft Legends). But of the three spin off games, Story Mode is the only that is no longer publicly available. To make a long story short, the devs for Story Mode, Telltale Games, went bankrupt and almost their entire catalogue was bought out by other companies. While some of Telltale's projects would eventually get republished (such as their Walking Dead games), no one has tried republishing Story Mode. Somehow, I wrote multiple reviews for Story Mode back when it was still available, but I never reviewed its source material. Not sure how that happened, but here we are. Side note, but those Story Mode reviews are so old that I cannot bring myself to read them in their entirety, as doing so causes me to die of cringe.
Minecraft was first released in 2009, albeit with a caveat. The Beta version was released in 2009, but version 1.0 (which Mojang considers the "full" version) wouldn't release until 2011. In 2014 the legal rights to Minecraft were bought by Microsoft, who have been using the franchise as their main mascot ever since. Because of the game's popularity and open-ended nature, Mojang has added dozens of updates, adding more and more content to the game. As such, "modern" Minecraft is a different beast from its days in Beta. Also, the overwhelming popularity of this game led to the development of not just those spin-off games I mentioned earlier, but also a live action movie starring Jack Black. I haven't watched the movie yet, but I'll write up a review once I do.
The strangest thing about Minecraft is that the game has been divided into multiple Editions. While the core gameplay is more or less the same across all versions, there are some important differences between them that are worth discussing. Minecraft: Java Edition is the version that's available on PC. This is the original version of the game, and the first to receive new updates. It also has an impressive amount of modding capability, meaning that one could create or download fan-made creatures and items and put them into the game directly. For these reasons, Java is often considered by most of the fandom to be the "definitive" Minecraft experience. The only downside of Java is that it has poor framerate on all but the most advanced computers.
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| A player defends their cozy little house from a horde of undead Mobs, with another player staying inside. Image found on minecraft.net |
Then there's Minecraft: Bedrock Edition, which is the version available on current-generation consoles (PS5, Xbox Series, etc.). This is the version I am most familiar with. Bedrock has a much smoother framerate than Java, and it has simplified combat. Oh yeah, combat. Quick intermission. In Java Edition, weapons have cooldowns dictating how often you can attack, with certain weapon types having faster cooldowns than others. Swords are the fastest, Axes are the slowest. But the slower a weapon is, the more damage it deals per attack. This cooldown does not exist in Bedrock Edition, so you can attack as fast as you can press the button.
Unfortunately, Bedrock does not have modding support like Java. Instead, Bedrock has paid DLC packs, which come in a few varieties. There are Skin Packs, which are new costumes for your character. Texture Packs meanwhile change the appearance of all the blocks and creatures to match a certain theme. And finally, Add-Ons change or add onto the core mechanics of the game itself, and function similarly to mods. In fact, there's a few Add-Ons that were originally popular mods for Java before being reworked for Bedrock. These packs are typically sold for about $5 to $15 USD. These aren't needed to enjoy the game, and I personally don't use Add-Ons at all (though I will mess around with Texture Packs from time to time). So my advice is to be responsible with your money. Though this goes for any video game with microtransactions.
The next version is called Minecraft: Mobile Edition, which is (to the extent of my knowledge) the same as Bedrock but with the controls reconfigured to work with mobile devices like IPhone and Android. I cannot speak to the quality of this version, as I never played it. But if you want to play Minecraft on your phone for whatever reason, well, there you go. There's also Minecraft: Education Edition, which reworks the game so that it can be used in schools to teach subjects like math or history. Again, I never played this version, so I cannot speak to its quality. But hey, it's there in case you want it.
Finally, there's Minecraft: Legacy Edition, which is the version available on old-gen consoles (PS3, Xbox 360, etc.). This was the version I started with, and as such I feel a great sense of nostalgia towards it. Unfortunately, this version has been abandoned by Mojang and as such, it hasn't received a single update in over a decade. That being said, this edition was a precursor to Bedrock Edition, and in some ways it was even better than its successor. The standout feature of Legacy Edition was the Tutorial World, a custom-built world that taught the player all the core game mechanics in a fun and natural manner, while also showcasing some large-scale builds to inspire the player's creativity. Bedrock's tutorial, by comparison, is just a series of popups. It's simpler, but the Tutorial World was an incredibly creative way to teach the player and was more in line with the "spirit" of Minecraft
Thankfully, you could transfer Legacy Edition save files into Bedrock Edition, so those old worlds could live on and still be played on a modern system. The only thing I could say bad about Legacy Edition was that it also had no modding support, and just like Bedrock, you needed paid DLC packs to get any additional content. Legacy's DLC was even more limited than Bedrock, as all of the "old" DLC packs were made by Mojang exclusively. No fan content in sight. Also, world generation was a lot more wacky in this version, as biome placement (more on that later) was completely random.
Minecraft has two main modes, Survival and Creative. Creative Mode is the simpler of the two, as it renders your character invincible, grants the ability to fly and gives you an infinite supply of every resource in the game. This mode exists primarily for people who like the building and artistic side of Minecraft but don't want to go through the challenges of regular gameplay. And there's no shame in that. I have spent hundreds of hours playing this game throughout the years, and I'd wager most of that time was just messing around in Creative Mode.
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| Two players work together to build a mountainside castle. Image found on minecraft.net |
Survival Mode is the real "meat" of the game, as this is where combat and resource management is most prominent. When you start a new Survival World, you are unceremoniously dumped in the wilderness with nothing of value to your name. World generation is somewhat random, as biomes and landscapes will get shuffled around into different shapes and sizes. One World might be a sprawling supercontinent with two dozen wildly different regions to explore, another might be a small island surrounded by hundreds of miles of ocean. If you're looking for a specific kind of World, you can type in a number or phrase into the seed generator, which turns whatever you type into a specific combination of biomes and landscapes.
Everything in the game is, as previously stated, made of blocks. Every block is 1 meter cubed (or 3.5 feet cubed), and can be picked up using certain tools and placed down somewhere else. You can build a wide variety of structures, from simple huts and gardens to giant castles and statues, by rearranging blocks into the desired shape. There are many kinds of blocks, each with their own unique properties. For example, dirt blocks can used as the foundation for most farms, as you can plant crops on top of them. Redstone can be used to construct advanced machines that can handle certain tasks automatically. But the most important block in the game is the humble wooden log.
Wood is the foundation that Minecraft's core gameplay is built upon. Simply put, it is almost impossible to beat this game without using wood in some capacity. You need wood to build your first shelter. You need wood to craft tools. You need wood to make the Crafting Table, which unlocks more advanced crafting recipes. You need wood to build bridges across perilous chasms. You need wood to build ladders to climb up and down cliffs. You need wood to build fencing for all of your animal farms. You need wood to build vehicles like boats or minecart tracks. It cannot be stated enough just how important wood is.
But how do you get wood, you ask? By punching trees. Is it realistic for a presumably average human to punch a tree down with their bare hands? Probably not. But you got to start somewhere, and in Minecraft, you start by punching trees. But once you have enough wooden logs, you can craft all of the things I just described. And you can collect saplings (which can eventually grow into new trees) by destroying the leaf blocks left behind by recently chopped down trees, so a patient player can get an infinite supply of wood by replanting all the trees they punch/chop down.
Once you have enough wood for your needs, you will inevitably head underground, either by digging a hole or finding a cave. The deeper you go, the rarer and more powerful the gems and metals become. But you can't (normally) skip straight to the best stuff. You are intended to pass through each "tier" of equipment one at a time, with each tier being stronger than the previous one. With the exception of wood, every material can only be mined with a pickaxe made from the previous tier. With a wooden pickaxe you can get stone, with a stone pickaxe you can get iron, and with an iron pickaxe you can get Diamonds. Diamonds are the rarest and highest quality material in the game. And Diamond-tier equipment is so strong that the player becomes borderline invincible. Keep in mind that all tools and armor will break from overuse, and even though Diamond tools have the most durability, they can be broken eventually.
One nitpick I have with Minecraft's progression is how it handles early-game armor. There simply isn't any kind of "wooden" or "stone" armor at all. Instead, The first armor tier is leather, which has terrible defenses compared to the amount of effort and materials needed to craft it. The second armor tier is chainmail, which cannot be crafted at all and only rarely appears inside treasure chests hidden all over the world. Just like with leather, chainmail's defenses aren't worth the effort needed to acquire it. Literally everyone who plays this game will always skip the first two armor tiers and go straight for iron. Leather's one redeeming quality is that leather boots will protect you from sinking into powdered snow, which is a hazard only encountered in "cold" biomes, but it's better than nothing.
You also need Diamonds to make an Enchanting Table, which is a special block used to upgrade preexisting armor and weapons with magical properties called Enchantments. These upgrades, generally speaking, are so strong that a player with Enchanted gear will almost always defeat a player with unenchanted gear. You are given a choice between three randomized options each time you use the Enchanting Table. Most Enchantments are pretty good, and well worth the investment. Just to list a few examples, The "Sharpness" Enchantment improves the damage output of weapons, while "Silk Touch" allows a tool to pick up blocks that are normally too fragile to pick up (such as glass or leaf blocks). "Infinity" gives ranged weapons, such as bows and crossbows, infinite ammo. And Fire Aspect lets a weapon set a foe on fire upon striking them.
The only Enchantment I would call outright bad is "Bane of Arthropods," which causes extra damage to spider-type enemies. The problem is that out of the 30+ creatures in this game, only two are classified as spiders. And both of them are so weak that you do not need the extra damage to fight them. In fact, Sharpness deals extra damage to ALL enemy types, including spiders. Thus, Sharpness is literally better than Bane of Arthropods in every conceivable way, as the latter is far too specialized for its own good.
Minecraft operates on a strict day/night cycle, with each day lasting 20 real life minutes (13 minutes of sunlight, 7 minutes of darkness). Keeping track of this cycle is important, as hostile creatures called Mobs will start appearing once the sun goes down. They can also appear during the day, but only in dark places like caves or roofed forests. The Mobs include classical monsters like zombies, spiders and skeletons, but there's also some weirder beasts like Endermen and Creepers. Each Mob has specific abilities that have to be taken into consideration when fighting them.
But Mobs are not the only danger in the game. There's also the Hunger Meter, which is basically a countdown showing how much time your character has until they starve. Whether or not you die from starvation is dependent on your chosen difficulty setting. But even on lower difficulties, you still need to keep Hunger full whenever possible, as you can only heal from injuries with a full Hunger Meter. You also need a full Hunger Meter to run at maximum speed. Hunger can be refilled by eating food, obviously. And there's a plethora of ways to get food. The simplest method is to kill an animal (such as a pig or a cow) then cook the meat by placing it inside a Furnace block.
You *could* eat meat raw, but raw meat doesn't restore as much Hunger, and it has a chance to poison your character. Cooking meat makes it 100% safe for consumption, as well as increasing the amount of Hunger restored. Alternatively, you can plant crops on dirt blocks and start growing your food with a farm. This method takes longer to set up properly, but it can eventually produce much more food than simply killing livestock.
Minecraft's Survival Mode is legendarily open-ended. The game doesn't give you any goals to work towards outside of immediate self-preservation. This is both the best and worst thing about Minecraft's core gameplay. It's great in the sense that Minecraft is quite possibly the most "freeing" game to play. The only long-term goal you have to worry about is whatever goal you give to yourself. You could hunt down the game's bosses, build a giant fortress-city with impenetrable defenses, ride a roller-coaster that's hundreds of miles long, map out the entire world, or create an industrial complex so advanced it can produce thousands of resources with the flip of a lever. And this is not even mentioning all the wacky nonsense that mods/Add-Ons and multiplayer interactions can bring to the table. I firmly believe that the main reason this game got as popular as it did is because nothing else in the industry gives you as much freedom as Minecraft does.
But at the same time, Minecraft offers no guidance for the player at all. Ergo, if you don't have a goal to work towards in mind, you can find the game boring or even frustrating. As such, the game asks a lot out of the player to come up with a goal for themselves and actually stick with it long-term. The closest thing you get to "beating" Minecraft is defeating its two bosses, the Wither and the Ender Dragon. But even then, the game doesn't give you any hint on how to find these bosses. Nor does the game tell you that these bosses even exist. Most Minecraft knowledge is acquired either through word of mouth or through checking the wiki. Which is precisely why the Tutorial world from Legacy Edition was such a good addition. Because it actually gave the player a general idea of what to do for a standard playthrough.
There is one last quirk to Survival Mode. In addition to all the normal difficulty options (easy, medium, and hard), there is a variant of Survival Mode called Hardcore Mode. Hardcore works the exact same way as normal Survival Mode, with one caveat; the player has only one life to work with. If your character dies while in Hardcore Mode, you will be forced to delete that world forever, completely erasing any and all progress in that world. In the case of multiplayer worlds, Hardcore simply auto-bans you from that world upon death, instead of deleting the world outright. This is the greatest challenge the game has to offer, and not one to be taken lightly. I myself have never tried Hardcore Mode, because I don't really play Minecraft for a challenging experience. I already play enough Souls Likes for that.
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| The player's character (who is by default named Steve) stands at the top of a mountain, overlooking a nearby village. Image found on Wikipedia.org |
Speaking of difficulty, you want to know something that can completely obliterate any sense of challenge? Villagers. Villagers are pacifistic Mobs who will buy and sell various items in exchange for emeralds, a material that is only exists to be used a currency with these creatures. Now, this doesn't sound too impressive by itself. But trading with the same Villager repeatedly causes that Villager to "level up" and offer more exotic deals. What a Villager sells changes based on their job, which can be changed by placing a thematically appropriate block in their home. For example, placing a Smithing table in a Villager's home turns it into a Smith. Placing a composter turns the Villager into a Farmer, et cetera.
At max level, Villagers can sell you some *very* powerful items. You can get Golden Carrots, which are the best food source in the game. You can get Enchanting books with specific upgrades, letting you skip the random nature of Enchanting books/gear normally. You can get Redstone and Glowstone, which are needed for advanced machinery and potions. And you can get Diamond-tier tools and armor. As long as you have emeralds, you can keep buying as much of these items as you want. And you can get emeralds simply by selling surplus crops or other cheap materials back to the Villagers, so everything that they sell to you is technically infinite. Villagers are almost comically overpowered once you understand how to take advantage of their capabilities.
Now let's talk about Minecraft's endgame areas, the Nether and the End. The Nether can be reached by building a portal frame using obsidian blocks (a rare material created by pouring water on lava), then lighting said frame on fire. The Nether is meant to be a fiery, nightmarish hellscape that looks, sounds and feels dangerous. The bottom layer of the Nether is flooded with lava, and water instantly evaporates if you try to bring some with you through the portal. The Nether is also home to some of the most dangerous enemies in the game.
One of the best things to happen to Minecraft was 1.16, also known as the Nether Update. This update reworked the Nether with new biomes, tree types, structures and enemies. It also added a new Mob called Piglins, who are kind of like Villagers, but more difficult to negotiate with. Piglins are normally hostile and will attack on sight, unless the player is wearing golden armor. Additionally, Piglins will only use golden ingots as currency, and their trades are completely random. There is no way to know what a Piglin will give you until you give it some gold first. In other words, Piglin trading is the Minecraft equivalent of gambling.
The main goal of the Nether Update (besides reworking the Nether) was to make gold more useful, as prior to this update it was considered the worst material in the game. Golden tools and armor were too fragile to justify using, and unlike wood and stone, it wasn't required to access better quality metals or gems. Gold's only redeeming quality was that it could be used to crafting Golden Apples and Golden Carrots. But now gold has an additional niche as both a currency and a deterrent to an otherwise highly dangerous Mob. Also, 1.16 added in a new metal alloy called Netherite, which can be combined with Diamond-tier equipment to make it even stronger than before. Netherite cannot be combined with any material other than Diamond, however.
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| Three players climb out of a Nether Portal. Image found on minecraft.net |
But why would ever want to come to the Nether in the first place? There's a few reasons. Firstly, Netherite allows you to make the best equipment in the game even better, and the desire for more power is intoxicating. Secondly, walking across one block in the Nether is equal to walking across eight blocks in the overworld, so a smart player can use the Nether as a kind of "shortcut" to reach faraway places more quickly. Thirdly, the items needed to access the two main bosses can only be found in the Nether.
To summon the Wither, you need to build a cross made of Soul Sand (a Nether-exclusive block type) and place three Wither Skulls (dropped by Nether-exclusive enemies) on top of it. Once you do this, you are free to fight the Wither itself. The Wither is a beast of mass destruction, capable of blasting through most terrain. Upon defeat, the Wither will reward you with the materials needed to craft the Beacon. This is a special block that bestows one positive effect of your choosing to all players within a 50 block radius. Its effect can be further enhanced by building a pyramid made of iron, gold or diamond blocks (your choice), and then placing the beacon on top of said pyramid. While this is mostly an excuse for an endgame player to show off their wealth, the mining speed bonus can be used to clear out large swathes of land in a timely manner. Overall, a good, if niche, reward for a well-won battle.
Reaching the Ender Dragon is a lot more complicated. In order to reach it, you first need Eyes of Ender, which are crafted using materials dropped by both Endermen and Blazes, the latter of which is a Mob unique to the Nether. These special items are needed to reach the second endgame location, the End. Unlike the Nether, you cannot build a portal directly to the End. Instead, you have to find an End portal frame that has spawned naturally within the world. There is always at least three End portal frames per world, and they will always be underground. To make finding them easier, the Eyes of Ender will always fly towards the direction of the the closest portal frame. Once you find a frame, you have to put 12 Eyes of Ender into it.
After doing all that work, you will be taken to the End, which is a small island floating in the center of an endless void. And the Ender Dragon is already here, ready to battle. The Ender Dragon is nowhere near as destructive as the Wither, nor is it as difficult. In fact, the main challenge comes not from the dragon itself, but a dozen or so crystals that continuously heal the beast. You're expected to find and smash all the crystals in order to turn the Ender Dragon battle into a fair fight.
For a long time, the reward for defeating the Ender Dragon was a tad anticlimactic. You get the Dragon Egg, a decorative block with no special uses outside of looking cool. You also get a new portal taking you back home, and upon entering this portal you receive... A poem. This poem is the ONLY piece of written narrative in the entire game. The poem is written from the perspective of two unknown beings, who (among other things) congratulate the player on surviving for so long in such a perilous environment. After the poem ends, the player is returned to their base. The player won, but the strangeness of the poem and the lackluster rewards made the victory feel a little hollow.
But this isn't the only reward in the reworked End. There's also Elytra wings, found on those floating ships I mentioned. Elytra wings allow the player to literally fly. Or rather, glide. You cannot fly straight up without some assistance, but horizontal movement is just fine. This item provides a massive boost to your mobility, and flying with Elytra is (to my knowledge) the fastest method of long range transport in the game besides Nether shortcuts. Both the Elytra and the Shulker Boxes make the End a more worthwhile adventure.
But what's left for you to do after you beat these two bosses and claim their rewards? Well... Nothing much, really. You can keep playing in that world, expanding your base and working on your personal goals. But as far as the game itself is concerned, you've completed your journey once the Wither and the Ender Dragon have been slain. The only thing left for you to do is wander the world you've explored and marvel at everything you (or your friends) built. That would be your legacy in that world.
Now that I got the core of Minecraft out of the way, I want to talk about the many updates this game has received. Mojang has added a plethora of content to the game over the years. New biomes, new Mobs, new items, et cetera. Like I said earlier, the Nether Update was one of the best things to happen to the game. The Nether was always the most dangerous location in the game, but with hindsight, it was fairly bland looking and didn't have that many points of interest. Thus, there was no reason to stay there long-term. The reworked Nether looks a lot better and is actually livable, so you can actually set up a base and live in the Nether as long as you want. Another update I really liked was 1.18, the Caves & Cliffs Update. Caves & Cliffs was actually two updates
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| A lovely view of Minecraft's landscape. Image found on minecraft.net |
In terms of presentation, Minecraft's blocky art style is simple and iconic. In fact, this style is so heavily associated with Minecraft that ANY video game that attempts a blocky art style is going to inevitably be called a Minecraft clone regardless of how similar it is in terms of gameplay. The game does have a vaguely medieval aesthetic, especially in regards to the structures and monster designs, but it doesn't confine itself to any one genre. You can easily building something that looks modern or even sci-fi with the right combination of blocks.
In terms of sound, Minecraft's music is relaxing and cozy. It doesn't have bombastic orchestras or heavy metal rock concerts or anything along those lines. Just a few calming piano notes and some ambient chimes. It's the perfect soundtrack to listen to while reading or writing. Most of the music for Minecraft was composed by C418 (real name Daniel Rosenfield), but as of 2020, a new musician known as Lena Raine took over the role of composer. I mention this because one of Raine's songs, Pigstep, might just be my favorite song in the entire soundtrack. It's so groovy and fun, while being more "exciting" compared to the other songs. At the same time, Pigstep manages to fit in with the cozy vibe that the rest of the soundtrack is going for.
The sound effects are also iconic and memorable. From the popping noise that plays when you pick up an item to the breaking sounds of all the different block types, every sound effect is immaculate. And how could I forget that one ambient sound effect that plays when you enter caves? It's so excessively creepy for an otherwise calm and relaxing game. You get used to it after a while, as the sound effect is purely for ambience and is not meant to signal any kind of danger. But every now and again, it gets you like a bad jump scare.
Overall... What else could I say about this game? There's a reason Minecraft has dominated the video game industry for 16 years. I was actually intimidated at first when I started writing this review. How do you review a game that gives the player so much freedom? This is the video game equivalent of a treasure chest full of LEGO bricks. You may not have any instructions on what to build, but you have all the tools to do whatever you please. I have my gripes with how the game has been handled in recent years. I still miss the Tutorial worlds. I don't really like the idea of fan-made mods becoming paid DLC, especially if their free counterparts are still publicly available. But it feels wrong to give Minecraft anything less than 5 stars out of 5 simply for the sheer cultural impact this game had. It would be like giving Star Wars: A New Hope or Lord of the Rings a low score.
Minecraft is the property of Mojang and Microsoft. None of the images used belong to me. Please support the original creators.