Summary
- Developers at Mojang discussed the history of bugs in Minecraft.
- Bugs in Minecraft inspired new features like the Creeper and powered rail mechanics.
- The infamous Herobrine myth is an example of Minecraft's lore influenced by glitches.
With Minecraft being well over a decade old, the game has encountered all sorts of unexpected issues over the years, and Mojang recently explained to the community how some of the most notorious glitches came to be. From faulty code that governs minecart physics to literal flying squids, Minecraft certainly has a storied history in terms of its bugs, with some such errors even inspiring the development of official future mechanics.
Bugs are an inevitability in just about every video game, and even every sufficiently complex piece of software. In a sandbox game like Minecraft, though, which allows players to do just about anything in a complex world full of different features that have been added over many years, unintended gameplay moments and broken bits of code are bound to be a bit more frequent. That said, Minecraft has had some particularly entertaining bugs since long before it was first available for people to play - for example, the Creeper, easily one of gaming's most iconic creatures, actually came to exist when Minecraft creator Notch repurposed a glitched mob model which arose from the creation of the pig mob.
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Several developers at Mojang, including lead creative designer Jeb, recently discussed Minecraft's history of bugs in a video posted on the game's official YouTube channel. The video helps players understand how unexpected problems in a game can easily crop up during development, and how the game's extremely vast community of players makes it much more likely for someone, somewhere, to discover even the rarest of Minecraft's glitches. The developers also detail how some of Minecraft's past bugs actually inspired the creation of new features in the future. In Minecraft's early days, it was possible for players to run two minecarts alongside each other in certain ways to provide a speed boost - an unintended interaction that eventually led to the creation of the powered rail.
How Squid's Were Once One of Minecraft's Most Problematic Mobs
Jeb also reminisced on the bugs that arose from some of his earliest work on the game, explaining that the squid mob was originally built from the cow. Because the developer forgot to remove the milking behavior when creating the squid, though, the mob retained the ability to be milked by players for quite a while early on. Squids actually turned out to be a particularly problematic mob for Minecraft's developers early on, with a different issue relating to the mob's movement code resulting in the infamous "flying squid" bug that was common during Minecraft's pre-release era.
An unholy marriage between creepypasta lore and Minecraft's tendency to glitch out even produced the Herobrine myth relatively early on in Minecraft's history, which was one of the most popular urban legends associated with the game that is still referenced today. Minecraft still has weird bugs, and while Mojang is constantly hard at work fixing the game's most pressing issues, many players continue to criticize the game's Bedrock Edition for being particularly unstable.
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OpenCritic Reviews
- Top Critic Avg: 90 /100 Critics Rec: 84%
WHERE TO PLAY
Minecraft is a game made up of blocks, creatures, and community. You can survive the night or build a work of art – the choice is all yours. But if the thought of exploring a vast new world all on your own feels overwhelming, then fear not!
Minecraft has no set goal and can be played however you’d like! This is why it’s sometimes called a “sandbox game” – there are lots of things for you to do, and lots of ways that you can play. If you like being creative, then you can use the blocks to build things from your imagination. If you’re feeling brave, you can explore the world and face daring challenges. Blocks can be broken, crafted, placed to reshape the landscape, or used to build fantastical creations.
Creatures can be battled or befriended, depending on how you play. The world of Minecraft allows for epic adventures, quiet meditations, and everything in between. You can even share your creations with other players, or play in community worlds!
- Engine
- LWJGL, PROPRIETARY ENGINE
- Multiplayer
- Online Co-Op, Online Multiplayer
- Franchise
- Minecraft
- Number of Players
- 1-4
- Split Screen Orientation
- Vertical or Horizontal
- Genre(s)
- Sandbox, Survival
- Platform(s)
- 3DS, Android, iOS, Nintendo Switch, Nintendo Wii U, PC, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, PS Vita, Xbox One, Xbox 360
- OpenCritic Rating
- Mighty
- How Long To Beat
- 129 Hours
- X|S Optimized
- No
- File Size Xbox Series
- 1.42 GB (August 2024)
