I don’t even recognize this game anymore.

About a week ago as of posting this, I rediscovered Minecraft after not having played it in months, and I was very surprised by how many new features have been added recently. While I actually had a few different ideas for games I wanted to review this week, my brain, for some reason, decided that I was not going to feel any motivation whatsoever to play or think about anything other than Minecraft. This is not the first time I’ve felt this way, and I’m sure this minor addiction that I’ve fallen back into won’t last forever. That being said, I figure why not work with rather than against my brain this week and write about the thing that I’m going to be thinking about anyway. Before I begin, I should mention that I play on bedrock edition, so everything I’m going to be talking about may or may not be true for java edition.

As you may have guessed from the title, one of the most striking changes since I last played is actually from the latest update titled “The Copper Age.” This update added practically an endless amount of copper items including armor, weapons, and even doors. I remember the days when you would have endless copper sitting in your chests with no real use other than crafting your hundredth lightning rod. So, I bet you can imagine my surprise when I learned that copper is now seemingly the new wood. Think of literally anything you can craft with wood and there is a very good chance you can make it with copper now too. I’ve actually been having trouble with finding enough copper for all of my new ideas.

Out of all the new copper items, by far the coolest of the new copper craftables is the copper golems, which are not only incredibly cute but also have a pretty awesome use. Most people strive to have an organized storage room in their base but actually making that a reality can be a hassle at times. I know I was tired of having to sort all of my produce into my chests after harvesting my gardens—Luckily, I don’t have to anymore! I can just hire one of these little guys and they’ll get to right work. The copper golem will take items from nearby copper chests and sort them into wooden chests that have the same item. It’s actually really cool to watch. It doesn’t work perfectly; it only remembers the last nine chests it’s looked in, so if you have more than nine chests it will spend forever rechecking the same chests over and over until it eventually decides to check the correct chest. Still, I think if I took some time to set it up a little bit smarter, copper golems could be really useful.

Minecraft also looks a lot different than it did a year ago. Apparently last July an update titled “Spring to Life” updated the graphics to look more realistic. I think the realism it’s going for is a little silly considering everything is made of blocks, but you can’t deny that it’s really pretty. The thing that has thrown me off most is the fact that water is clear instead of the bright blue it used to be. Now I can see the bottom of the pond I made in my survival world and it’s not that pretty. Another change to the game’s visuals that was released a few months before the graphics update is the addition of cow, pig, and chicken variants. Similar to how the wolf variants work, depending on what biome you’re in, you may find interestingly colored versions of all different animals. Does this actually affect the gameplay? No, not really. Do I get excited when I find a brown chicken? Yes.

This article is mainly about the updates since I last played, but I’d also like to briefly talk about what else I’ve been working on in the hours upon hours I’ve played of Minecraft in the last week or so. I decided to pick up where I left off on a survival mode file I started about a year ago, and I think I made quite a bit of progress this week. I had taken over a village I found on the side of a mountain (though unfortunately all of the villagers have died at this point) and I built my base right at the top. I’ve built various different farms and buildings around the village so far, including my latest two: a dripstone farm and a cobblestone generator! Sadly, the one thing I cannot figure out is how to build a bee farm, which is what I really need so I can wax all of my copper blocks before they oxidize. For now, though, let’s just pretend the partially oxidized copper (with some blocks more oxidized than others) gives my buildings character or something like that.

My little brother has been popping in and out of the world while I’ve been playing and he actually built the nether portal I’ve been using. I had wanted to search for a dried ghast so I could show off a little bit of the new-ish happy ghast gameplay, but I immediately scratched that plan after going down to collect wood. Being not a big fan of horror, maybe I’m just not used to anything slightly scary, but I had forgotten how much the nether freaks me out. Whenever I tried to chop down any warped trees, I kept getting startled by a zombie piglin that had snuck up on me from behind. I’m sure I’ll eventually try going back, but I’m not really in a rush.

While Minecraft is a lot different than it used to be, the game still hasn’t lost the charm that makes me keep coming back for more. Really, most of what I’ve been doing this last week is building with the same blocks this game has had for years. (As a side note, I really like the new shelf blocks that were added with The Copper Age, I just haven’t figured out where to put them in my base.) The game could never receive another update, and it would still be incredible. Nevertheless, I’m really enjoying messing around with these new features, and I can’t wait to see what Mojang adds next.