It's time to party.
Minecraft is turning 15 years old in a couple of days, and apart from making me reckon with the relentless passage of time, it seems like there are a lot of fun celebrations to be packed into the next two weeks.
The announcement was made in a short YouTube video on the official Minecraft channel, and basically serves as a small teaser of what is to come. There's dancing skeletons, angry pillagers, and Jens Bergensten on a boat (I'm not really sure what that's about).
"15 days of exclusive items and daily specials, each one attributed to 15 years of building, exploring, crafting, mining, and adventuring," declares the video's narrator. "It's going to be a block-tacular celebration. Every day has something to see, download, or play, so buckle up for 15 days of Minecraft-mania." The celebrations will likely begin on May 17 (Minecraft's anniversary), so it's best to just keep an eye out for announcements on Minecraft's news blog.
As part of the celebrations, it would be nice to see some appreciation for the most intricate and impressive worlds created by block aficionados, whether that be a Minecraft remake of Fallout: New Vegas' world map or a recreation of Middle-earth. The mind-blowing models that some players create are honestly one of my favourite parts of the game. And while I've not been able to do anything nearly as impressive as building Lord of the Rings locations with just blocks, it's still incredible to watch.
We've also recently got a ton of cool stuff in the latest major Minecraft update, 1.21, which added a new hostile mob called The Breeze (as well as a friendly mob, an armadillo) among other things. The new snapshot 24w10a also added eight new wolf variants as well as some armour to put them in, which was a much-needed change. But here's hoping we get a few extra add-ons to celebrate the anniversary.
Minecraft has a sizable mob graveyard that it could call on during this celebration. Most of these forgotten creations are ideas that didn't make the cut in the annual mob vote. The most famous of these is the glorious yellow Moobloom, a distant cousin of the cow and the Mooshroom, which doesn't do much other than look adorable. Then there's also the barnacle, which looks like something straight out of a deep-sea horror movie, as this mob could latch onto boats and drag players down into the depths. We've already got a monster terrorising the deep mines now, so why not bring one back for the ocean?
