At Minecraft Live, an exciting new graphical update named "Vibrant Visuals" was unveiled, set to transform the visual experience of the game. This update will first roll out to compatible Minecraft: Bedrock Edition devices, with future plans to extend it to Minecraft: Java Edition. Vibrant Visuals introduces enhanced visual features such as directional lighting, volumetric fog, pixelated shadows, and shimmering water effects, all without altering the core gameplay mechanics. For instance, the new visual shadows won't affect light levels or the spawning of hostile mobs, ensuring that gameplay remains unchanged.
Minecraft Vibrant Visuals Comparison Screenshots
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Players will have the flexibility to switch between the new and original visuals with a simple button press, allowing those who prefer the classic look to maintain it.
Agnes Larsson, game director of Minecraft Vanilla, shared that the initial beta release is scheduled in a few months. "There's a lot of testing going on now to try to get it to as many platforms as possible, but it's important that it's high quality and good performance. So yeah, this truly is the start of the journey,” she remarked.
Maddie Psenka, senior product manager for Vibrant Visuals, elaborated on the project's development: “I think it's been a journey for a while. Something that we've wanted to do for the game. There have been past projects around graphics, but this time we really wanted to take the space to build the foundations for this new mode. Not getting too ahead of things, making sure things were cross-platform and were really strong so we could build on top of that and release that with the community. We really wanted to give players what they wanted. We know this kind of visual update is something that they've been asking for a bit.”
Psenka added, “We weren't going as fast as we could on PC to make things look really great and call it done. We wanted to make sure it worked on mobile, worked on console. There's a lot of complexities of course, as you can imagine when jumping across platforms and the different backends there. But it's something that we really took our time with to put something forward that we really are proud of.”
This marks the beginning of a new visual era for Minecraft, one that will continue to evolve over the coming years as Mojang balances the game's iconic aesthetic with modern graphical enhancements.Jasper Boerstra, Minecraft's art director, expressed optimism about the future: “As Minecraft continues to evolve, I think we'll find new things to add to the graphics over the years, right? I mean, we're always in active development and we're here to stay for a long time. Minecraft is always going on. It's more relevant than ever. So yeah, I think these graphic updates, whenever something comes up or we get new ideas or there's player feedback and forth, we might look into even more features.”
Vibrant Visuals will be a free update, reflecting Mojang's commitment to enhancing the game without heavily monetizing it. This approach aligns with their philosophy of improving the original game rather than creating a “Minecraft 2” or leveraging generative AI technology. Even after 15 years, Minecraft shows no signs of slowing down.
For more details on upcoming features, check out everything announced at Minecraft Live 2025.
