Highlights
- Dyes in Minecraft have the potential to revolutionize gameplay by unlocking greater creative potential for players.
- Currently, dyes are mainly used for coloring items like armor and beds, but they have limited application to building blocks like stone and wood.
- Expanding the use of dyes to wood and stone would give players more creative freedom in their builds and reduce the need for introducing new trees in future updates.
While Minecraft continues to be the front-runner in gaming for the wealth of creative potential it offers players, there's one underutilized feature it currently has that's one update away from revolutionizing the gameplay experience for the better. The use of dyes has been a core component for many Minecraft players that have helped expand gameplay from personalizing their gear to adding greater flexibility for their builds. But dyes still have their limits within the game chief among these being which blocks they are compatible with, meaning that Mojang has yet to unlock dyes' fullest potential for all players.
At the current time of writing, dyes are mainly used by Minecraft players to dye items such as armor, beds, shulker boxes, and more, but they can be used to recolor blocks as part of players' builds. But the types of blocks typically used for builds such as stone and wood can't be dyed, only concrete powders, glass, and wool. So while there is a variety of color shades from various grays with stone to multiple browns and the odd red or blue for wood, the expansion of dye application to these building blocks and more could truly open up Minecraft's creativity.
The Uses and Limits of Minecraft's Dyes
Minecraft currently has sixteen different dyes that players can craft and utilize to add some color to otherwise ordinary-looking blocks and materials. Perhaps some of the earliest uses most players will find for dyes is to recolor wool in order to create different color beds, carpets, and more as an easy but effective way to personalize their own builds and bases. More experienced players, however, will begin to use dyes to create various shades of concrete powder, terracotta, and glass, something which is helped by accumulating harder-to-find dye colors like brown which is only obtainable from traders or cocoa beans.
However, despite Minecraft's current dye usage, players are still limited when it comes to the appearance of dyed blocks. For example, while concrete powder can be dyed with each available color, the resulting concrete block looks like a cube of solid color without any distinguishing textures. Similarly, though wool can be dyed each color as well, it is not a block typically used by players for their builds as it can't be crafted into stairs, slabs, or anything else of the sort. Even terracotta and its glazed alternatives are limited in their appearance and utility, so Minecraft can always do more with dyes for its players.
How Minecraft's Dyes Can Be Improved
As the most common and preferred blocks used by players for their builds, Minecraft has multiple variations of wood and stone to choose from with recent updates like Caves and Cliffs introducing deepslate as a darker gray alternative to traditional stone. However, the number of these variations is still limited with just eleven wood types in Minecraft including the 1.20 update adding bamboo to a handful of stone blocks, ultimately leaving players equally constrained for choice when it comes to their builds. For instance, should players want to use a colored wood type that isn't brown, their only other options are warped or crimson wood.
One change Minecraft should therefore make is expanding the use of dyes to wood and stone in order to remedy this. Allowing players to dye their own wood, for example, would help give them the creative freedom for their builds without being stuck for only a few options to choose from, while for Mojang it would reduce the need for constantly introducing new trees in future updates. Being able to dye stone, on the other hand, would have a much bigger impact, as players already use a variety of stone blocks in their builds from cobblestone to bricks in Minecraft, meaning dyed stone could radically expand player creativity even further.
Minecraft is available now for Mobile, PC, PS4, Switch, and Xbox One.
