Highlights
- Minecraft's next major update will introduce new trial chamber structures, which offer specialized combat challenges and valuable loot.
- The enigmatic trial keys found in these trial chambers currently have no known use, leading to speculation and theories about their purpose.
- The trial keys could potentially be used to lock and unlock new assets like copper doors or chests, upgrade trial spawners, or serve as a currency for trading with vendors.
The next major update for Minecraft is shaping up to be a pretty exciting one, and while fans have only gotten a glimpse of some upcoming features so far, the game's current experimental build allows players to see the massive new trial chamber structures for themselves. These procedurally generated subterranean structures are similar in nature to Minecraft's existing dungeons, with the upcoming trial chambers housing specialized mob spawners, new building blocks, and the hostile creature known as the Breeze throughout their many sprawling corridors and rooms.
Though the trial chambers are still in active development and could still see big changes before their official introduction in Minecraft's next major update, the structures themselves are unlike anything yet seen in the sandbox game. Their design focuses on presenting a gauntlet of combat challenges to players through a series of specialized spawner rooms, but of course, these trials aren't without their rewards. Skilled players can potentially win themselves some valuable loot from these monster-infested chambers, but one item in particular has become the focus of community speculation - the enigmatic trial keys.
How to Get Minecraft's Trial Keys, And How They Could Change the Game
While trial keys do exist in the latest preview version of Minecraft, they currently don't do anything. Nobody can yet be sure exactly what they'll be good for, as even the developers themselves at Mojang have remained tight-lipped about these items, with few mentions of the keys cropping up in any official material regarding the trial chamber structures. There are a number of theories as to what the trial keys will be useful for when the update finally releases, but other aspects of the trial chambers may offer some clues. What is known is that they can be earned exclusively from trial chamber structures from the following sources:
- As a direct reward from trial spawners after completing combat encounters (50% drop chance per spawner)
- As an item found in a trial chamber's entrance chest (6.8% drop chance per chest)
- As an item found in pots throughout a trial chamber (3.6% drop chance per pot)
The Likely Uses for Minecraft's Trial Keys
The first potential application of the trial key is generally considered to be the most boring one - as a means of locking and unlocking one of the new assets coming in Minecraft's next update, the copper door. Minecraft's next big update has a renewed focus on copper, with the trial chambers themselves consisting largely of copper blocks while also featuring a variety of new copper appliances such as the copper bulb and door. Copper doors function identically to regular doors, but will oxidize just like any other copper block. The ability to lock these doors would make them both unique and secure, though locking doors would seem pointless in a game where nearly everything can simply be destroyed.
Similar to the idea of lockable doors, one of the most common theories points to the possibility of lockable chests. This would be an incredibly useful feature on multiplayer servers where players might have to worry about safeguarding their goods and gear from other players, but almost completely pointless for those playing Minecraft in singleplayer survival. That said, these keys might be useful not just for locking existing chests, but rather unlocking certain special chests that could spawn either within the trial chamber structures themselves, or in other structures found throughout a world in Minecraft. Additionally, it's worth considering that unlockable chests could be a valuable asset to custom singleplayer map creators, who would more easily be able to incorporate traditional "lock and key" mechanics to their levels.
Still though, ender chests provide one good, foolproof method of keeping belongings safe in a multiplayer Minecraft world, and as with the concept of lockable copper doors, lockable chests seem pointless when players without keys could just destroy a chest to claim its contents. With that in mind, the potential of yet another new type of chest has sparked the interest of many players. While shulker boxes do allow fans to carry significantly more inventory due to them retaining their contents when broken, some have speculated that a new type of locked chest might function in a similar way, possibly affording players a way of carrying extra resources without having to travel to the End dimension.
How Minecraft's Trial Keys Could be Connected to The Trial Chambers
While any sort of key item could have far-reaching implications for the game itself, the trial keys' exclusivity to trial chambers suggests that the keys are to be used somewhere within the structures themselves. One likely possibility is that the trial keys are to be used to upgrade or somehow modify the trial spawners found throughout the chambers. It's known that Minecraft's new trial spawners, unlike regular dungeon spawners, will only spawn a set number of mobs for players to defeat, though the number of monsters - and rewards - that they produce scale depending on the number of players present. The keys could be used either to forcibly reset the cooldown on a spawner, or trigger a more intensive wave of mobs for greater rewards.
Another interesting theory as to the keys' use is that they'll be used as a new currency of sorts. When viewing a trial key in Minecraft's inventory menu, it will be listed under the "ingredients" category - this could mean that they'll be used to craft something not yet revealed, or more likely, used as a resource to trade with some sort of vendor in exchange for extra rewards. This could mean that there's a lot yet to be revealed about the trial chambers themselves, but fans may just have to wait until the next Minecraft update releases next year to finally get some solid answers.
