The latest Minecraft updates have largely been about adventure. The Caves and Cliffs update reworked the way that underground tunnels and mountains generate, giving players more interesting environments to explore, while the upcoming Wild Update adds a new biome with a treacherous mob for players to outwit. These Minecraft updates are great, but they don't necessarily provide much for fans looking for new angles on Minecraft's combat. It may be a largely creative game, but for fans of Survival mode in Minecraft, combat needs to get new thrills once in a while too. Unfortunately, these last few updates haven't provided much in terms of combat features.
Mojang has teased plans to rework the player's side of combat in a future Minecraft update, but it should take a new look at how it handles hostile Minecraft mobs as well. Fans could really use new challenges to test their skills against. The village raids provide an excellent blueprint for a Minecraft combat update. It would be great if more Minecraft locations had special types of horde battles that made each location feel more special. The illagers that occasionally lay siege to villages engage and reward players in a way that's worth replicating with different mob designs.
Learning From Minecraft's Illager Raids
Although horde events in villages existed before illagers joined Minecraft, thanks to the occasional zombie invasion, illagers really stepped up the zombie horde concept. For one thing, their ranged attacks and destructive Ravagers endanger villagers in a way that no zombie horde can, meaning players have to work hard to defend villagers during a raid, providing them with a secondary objective. For another, raids can be triggered predictably, meaning Minecraft players are encouraged to fortify villages and prepare for an attempt at a raid. The secondary objectives and sense of strategy associated with village raids make them a very special take on Minecraft combat.
Mojang would be wise to apply these circumstances to other parts of Minecraft, giving players certain objects or conditions that'll summon a huge horde of enemies that players have to systematically fight off in order to win a reward. For instance, Mojang could update Minecraft's shipwrecks, adding a special object that'll summon waves of Drowned to attack players when removed from the ship. Nether Fortresses could profit from horde battles too. A new sanctum inside Nether Fortresses might bury trespassers in hordes of Wither Skeletons and other Nether mobs, encouraging players to plan ahead before they try to steal the fortress' greatest treasure.
Why Minecraft Could Use More Horde Battles
When adding new challenges to Minecraft combat, Mojang might be tempted to add new Minecraft bosses instead, but horde battles may have more valuable overall due to their accessibility. In Minecraft, players have to achieve very specific, complicated conditions to fight a Wither or an Ender Dragon, and replicating those fights afterwards takes a lot of work too. In contrast, battles inspired by village raids could be easily repeated through a simple trigger, meaning players always have access to a special combat challenge. Raid-like Minecraft battles could also inspire a few new mobs that eventually populate other Minecraft locations.
Minecraft combat certainly isn't a priority for the Wild Update, given how the Warden is meant to be an obstacle rather than a boss. It's okay if not every Minecraft update focuses on fighting, but hopefully Minecraft's 1.20 update does add some new combat features. Mojang has been teasing plans to change weapon and shield stats for some time now, and if that's part of the Wild Update's eventual successor, then hopefully Mojang encourages players to test out the changes on new groups of foes. For the time being, though, the Wild Update at least looks like a compelling addition to Minecraft's overworld, if not an action-focused one.
Minecraft is avialable now for PC, PS4, Switch, and Xbox One.
