By Kloe Adams

Minecraft LIVE took place on Mar. 22, where it announced the first Minecraft game drop of the year, Spring to Life. The update targets the overworld, which now flourishes with biome specific mobs, whimsical block designs, and vivid sound and graphic effects. As biomes change from frigid snowy taigas to sweltering deserts, so do the colors of classic mobs such as pigs, cows, and chickens. In addition, sheep now spawn with wool color dependent on their biome. Veering away from the common white wool, sheep found in cold biomes spawn most likely with black wool and in warm biomes with brown wool. 

The next aspect of the update concentrates on landscapes, adding radiant and decorative blocks such as leaf litters, firefly bushes, wildflowers, and bush blocks. Leaf Litters pop up in forests, dark forests, and wooded badlands, adding a subtle but golden touch to any landscape. Firefly bushes, although appearing plain in daytime, reveal a twinkling array of firefly particles at night, glowing slightly. However simple, wildflowers and bushes add to the overall spring-time aesthetic of the overworld with their pastel colors. Finally, the update introduces two new types of grasses, short and tall dry grasses.

The last large impact of the update includes fun new audio and visual effects which add a more personal detail to the game. An exciting element to all animal lovers, the update includes six new wolf sounds, including ambient, hurt, death, growl, whine, and pant. The new sounds are part of variants called big, cute, puglin, angry, grumpy, and sad. From these, the game randomly assigns one of these variants to wolves when they spawn. Other audio effects include falling leaf particles and ambient block sounds in the desert and badlands biomes. Moreover, spawn eggs, which originally all looked identical with only color varying, now have their own unique visual that captures the personality and character of the mob they spawn. Even more, each egg varies in shape to reflect the in-world size of the mob it spawns. 

While Minecraft will not bring this addition to the game yet, Minecraft LIVE announced the eventual release of dried ghasts, ghast lings, and happy ghasts. In the current edition of Minecraft, ghasts are a hostile mob that reside in the netherworld. Minecraft LIVE explained the misunderstood history of ghasts, saying that they do not live in the nether, but are rather trapped. 

A future version of Minecraft will allow players to capture dry ghasts in the nether, transport them to the overworld, rehydrate them, and bring back to life a ghastling which will eventually grow into an adult happy ghast. Furthermore, after reaching adulthood, players gain the ability to attach a harness to the happy ghast, mount it, and fly around.

Minecraft LIVE not only brings a blooming new update but also enthralling aspects of the game to come. Whether a dedicated player or new to the game, Minecraft users should prepare themselves for the gripping new updates of Minecraft.

(Sources: Minecraft)