At last, Minecraft’s next update is finally here.
Minecraft’s developer company, Mojang, recently revealed the title of the update called “Trails & Tales,” in reference to the planned addition of certain features in the game. These features include the new cherry blossom forest, the sniffer mob, archaeology, and armor features.
All these features were discovered by the Minecraft community through the snapshot release, in which players are able to preview certain aspects of upcoming updates before they arrive. The snapshots also serve as a way for the developers to easily fix bugs that are noticed by the player. In return, the community gets to collectively weigh in their opinions on changes that could be made to the planned update.
For Minecraft 1.20, one of the most talked about additions to the game is the new cherry blossom tree. While it is the second flowering tree to be added into the game after the azalea tree, it is the first to receive its own biome and unique wood type. The trees can be found in the cherry blossom forest, and the core of its wood is pink. Other wood-based materials crafted with this wood keep its pink hue.
The update has been received with much excitement throughout the community, especially with fans who focus on the creative aspects of the game. The idea of cherry blossom trees is not a new concept, as mod creators have already offered it several years back. Because of this, many fans took note of Mojang officially adding it into the game as a sign for other possibilities of widely-requested functions in the future.
Other new plants include the torch flower, which can only be grown from seeds found by a Sniffer mob, another new animal in the game. As the winner of the 2022 mob vote, the animal naturally has much mystery surrounding it, as the developers in the past have put in special effort to effectively implement the mob into the game.
This time, the Sniffer is introduced as a new category of “ancient” mob that existed long before the player joined the world. The news of this classification shocked many fans, as it implies that the Sniffer is older than many other bosses in the game, such as the Warden or the Ender Dragon. What sets the Sniffer apart from other mobs is how the players encounter it in the wild. With almost all mobs in the game, they spawn in automatically as soon as the player enters their native biome. (This excludes mobs that require construction, such as the Wither, Iron and Snow Golem.) Instead, the Sniffer can only be hatched from an egg discoverable underwater.
While not much information has been released outside of this, the new category specially dedicated to the Sniffer mob could potentially pave a path towards more mobs of the same type, furthering the lore of Minecraft worlds.
More features that have been announced also focus on unearthing the past, such as the addition of archaeology. This particular aspect of the game has been teased in the previous update, Caves and Cliffs, but was cut out last minute due to time constraints, as the developers felt it wasn’t final enough to be released.
With this update, players can now find objects hidden in sand around desert temples and wells. With every area, there is a possibility of finding a Pottery Shard which can then be crafted into a Decorated Pot. Though a section of the Minecraft community has questioned the relevance of this update, the majority see this update as a closer look into the history of the worlds you explore in Minecraft.
This update serves to further enhance the storytelling within the game, as every generated structure and mob tells a hypothetical of what used to be there before the player ever existed.
The Trails and Tales update does have smaller features besides the three mentioned above, and this update definitely will not be the last. With a game as timeless and versatile as Minecraft, it is comforting to know that its developers are still continuing to implement new details throughout the game.
