Minecraft unveils new mob ahead of update 1.21

Mojang Studios has shared some more details on what we can expect in Update 1.21 (the working title for Minecraft's upcoming content update) which is set to arrive "midway" through 2024.

A whole lot of news came out of this year's Minecraft Live event, not least of which was a new look at Update 1.21 and its new mob, the new Trial Chamber feature, and more. You can check out the full Minecraft Live 2023 video below.

The first major addition coming with update 1.21 is the Trial Chamber. "The trial chamber is a sprawling structure of corridors and rooms that are packed with traps, trial spawners, mobs, loot, and more," the helpful (and much shorter) Minecraft Live 2023 recap post tells us. "The trial chamber is procedurally generated, which means you’ll face a new challenge each time you enter! And thanks to the trial spawner, a cunning device which spews out mobs, the challenge level will adjust based on the number of adventurers in your party."

Another new addition is the breeze mob, "a hostile mob that likes to leap dizzying circles around its opponent, and attack using the power of wind." Interestingly, it seems that instead of just dealing damage, the breeze's wind power affects blocks so that "the room becomes part of the fight." We also had a look at "the new decorative tuff and copper blocks, as well as copper bulbs, which can be toggled on and off using redstone pulses."

There's a whole lot more Minecraft news from the Minecraft Live event, which will need breaking down on its own as there's a lot, but one other thing the event revealed was the winner of the mob vote. This year, the mob vote has been a little more contentious; just last week, a petition demanding Mojang stopped the mob vote topped 400,000 signatures. The petition argued that Mojang should bring more new content to the game by adding all three of the proposed new mobs instead of just one. The Minecraft Live event, however, revealed one mob vote winner as usual: the armadillo, a mob from the savannah biome.

Minecraft still sits comfortably on our list of the best Xbox Game Pass games, and we'll be sure to keep an eye out for more news on future content.