Boss fights might not exactly be the first thing that players might think of when jumping into Minecraft for the first time, but they have become a huge part of both the endgame and modding community. However, while Minecraft's Ender Dragon might be the standout encounter with its own dedicated arena and canon ending, there aren't many other cases that make use of specialized arenas to fight in.
Considering the biomes and random encounters in Minecraft, it's strange to see that there aren't many bosses that make use of some of these areas to flesh out these fights. The closest anything else gets to this in the base game would roughly be the Elder Guardian, who only appears in and around ocean monuments, but have a level of RNG that separates them from the Ender Dragon.
There are a few places that Mojang can look for developing new bosses, or reworking old bosses to have more structured spawns that make better use of their surroundings. The possibilities are endless, from limiting the RNG of currently existing bosses by specifying where and when they spawn to looking at the fan community for ideas on how to expand Minecraft's enemy encounters. However, the benchmark to set off from should certainly be the structure already placed into the game with the Ender Dragon and The End.
Ender Dragon as a Benchmark
The path to The End, the final zone of Minecraft, is a long process that involves finding a stronghold and collecting a very specific set of materials in order to open the end portal. As a reward, players are immediately pitted against the Ender Dragon, who acts as the final boss of the game and guards both free exploration of The End and the actual end credits. Both this strange new biome itself and the Ender Dragon are clearly built to work together, with structures built specifically to house the End Crystals that can heal the boss scattered around the area.
There aren't really any other biomes that are built with the intent of giving players a fight like the Ender Dragon, even though there are other areas that require some type of portal to be transported to. Most other bosses are either summoned to any unspecific location like the Wither, or work with Minecraft's standard mob spawning in order to more randomly spring these encounters onto players. It's a strange situation, considering that there are Biomes that could work well with having more structured encounters acting as guardians or obstacles.
Biomes That Could Use a Structured Boss
There are a few places already included in Minecraft's latest areas and biomes, such as the new caves or even the Nether that recently saw substantial updates. A strong choice for another Nether rework could include introducing a boss spawn that appears inside of the Nether Fortress, guarding either valuable loot or access to the Blazes that are a key part to entering The End in the first place. There are already some mobs that spawn in the area that would work as a more structured obstacle, with new Ender Dragon-like mechanics that can make progress through certain sections of the game feel more earned.
Moving away from the Nether, there is a random encounter in the Overworld that really needs something formidable to make finding the rare spawn more impressive than it currently is. This would be the Woodland Mansion, which currently acts as a tough enough encounter given Minecraft's villager mobs that spawn with the structure, but lack a feeling of finality when exploration is finished. Something like an upgraded ravager or an exceptionally powerful Evoker could work to make these rare encounters more impressive to overcome.
The Modding Community's Many Solutions
As is often the case for any popular title, the Minecraft modding community is already paving the way for new boss encounters that have a similar structure as the Ender Dragon. Several that stand out include the Ender and Chaos Chickens, which mostly just copy the mechanics of the Ender Dragon, but with a chicken as the main enemy. However, there are a few more original mechanics that come with these bosses specifically, such as needing a chicken stick to break the enemies' shields, as well as some other new mobs that are entirely player-created.
Mojang hasn't been against looking to the Minecraft community for new mobs before, so checking out some of the most popular fan-created bosses could be a great place to start. Integrating fan-made biomes into existing areas could also go a long way to give some of these bosses homes in existing sections of the game. This doesn't necessarily mean that Mojang needs to bring the Chaos Chicken and its accompanying mods into Minecraft, but the edges of ridiculousness that these creations teeter on could be great for expanding the endgame content.
Minecraft is available now for PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
