Highlights
- Minecraft's Warden introduces a unique approach to hostile mobs, requiring players to evade rather than kill them, opening Minecraft up to stealth gameplay.
- The success and positive reception of the Warden should inspire future mobs in Minecraft to have similar unique traits and approaches, expanding the gameplay experience.
- Future mobs could have layered approaches, such as being killed by specific conditions or being tamed with offerings, adding depth to the combat and challenging players in new ways.
Minecraft has consistently wowed players with its many waves of fresh content that have been released over the years. The hugely successful sandbox title owes a lot of its praise to the constant shake-up of its experience, with the recent introduction of the Deep Dark and its imposing Warden mob being a great example of this.
While not being specified as a boss, the Warden mob of Minecraft possesses devastating attacks and a deep health pool, posing a serious threat to even the most seasoned players. Because of this, it is much more common to see players engage the mob in truly unique and insightful ways in order to defeat or avoid the Warden. The Warden currently stands by itself in terms of being a mob that requires this level of pre-planning and premeditation in an approach, being a kind of blueprint that Mojang should use for hostile mobs going forward.
The Unique Approach to Minecraft's Warden
In terms of hostile mobs in Minecraft, players usually share the same usual approach of simply killing them by dealing conventional damage. While these mobs have different attack styles which need to be considered, the general approach to Minecraft's enemies has long been quite one-dimensional.
Even the bosses of Minecraft, such as the Ender Dragon and the Wither, offer little in terms of how they should be approached in combat, with the main gimmick behind bosses being how they are accessed or spawned. The recent introduction of the Warden turned the franchise's usual enemy approach on its head, being designed to be evaded as opposed to killed outright.
While it is possible to kill the Warden, it is a feat that is rarely worth the needed effort or is just flat-out unfeasible in most scenarios. Instead, players are encouraged to sneak past Deep Dark sensors to avoid spawning the Warden or making as little noise as possible to not alert him when he is present. This essentially opens Minecraft up to stealth gameplay, which was previously unheard of for the title. With how a different approach to mob introductions can be so useful in expanding the gameplay of Minecraft, future mobs need to have similar unique traits and approaches going forward.
Future Warden-Inspired Minecraft Mobs
The memorability and positive reception of the Warden mob should open the door to a plethora of similar mobs in future Minecraft updates. These hypothetical mobs would only need to possess the same kind of layered approach as the Warden in terms of how they need to be dealt with.
For example, with Minecraft leaning more and more into the supernatural, new mobs could be introduced that can only be killed by being submerged in water, or exposed to light. These mobs could vary in size, frequency, and loot, and would give much more of a thought process behind how players gear up to challenge the unknown.
Minecraft could alternatively lean into its pre-existing taming mechanic for a new hostile mob, with a hulking new enemy akin to the Warden being placated by an offering of a certain food or valuable resource. There are near limitless possibilities for how Mojang could implement these kinds of Warden-styled mobs in future updates, which would crucially give the game many more layers to its otherwise relatively stale combat. With the Warden highlighting just how much fans welcome challenging new takes on hostile mobs, the Warden should be a launching point for many more layered hostile encounters in Minecraft's future.
Minecraft is available for Mobile, PC, PS4, Switch, and Xbox One.
