Highlights
- Minecraft players continue to stumble upon rare and interesting occurrences, like encountering a random Wither skull flying through the air.
- Exploration in Minecraft is about uncovering new phenomena and experiences, not just discovering new lands or blocks to build with.
- Recent updates to Minecraft have focused on enhancing exploration, with overhauls to cave systems, the Nether, new biomes, and structures.
Minecraft is packed with awesome things to discover, but a clip shared by a member of the community highlights their encounter with what seems to be an unidentified flying object, at least at first glance. Even after more than a decade since the game’s official release, fans of Minecraft continue to stumble upon and document interesting and often extremely rare occurrences in the game, ranging from the discoveries of extremely small or rare biomes to procedurally generated structures spawning in bizarre, unexpected locations.
This sense of discovery has always been an integral part of the Minecraft experience. Exploration within the game tends to be less about the discovery of new lands and instead more about the uncovering of new phenomena, whether it be a player’s first encounter with a mob such as the Enderman, or their first time delving into an ancient city and learning how to safely navigate its grounds. This is why it’s important to many players that Minecraft‘s continued updates largely focus on delivering features that provide memorable experiences rather than just new blocks to build with. Even so, players often find themselves making new discoveries based on some of the game’s older features as well.
Creative Minecraft Players Build Incredible City on a Bridge
A group of four creative Minecraft players build an incredible city on a bridge that includes Barracks, a Cathedral, a Castle, and more.
One interesting clip recently shared by a fan known online as AnxiousShinobi makes for a good example. It shows the player encountering an odd, flying cube as they glide through their world with their elytra, which leaves behind a trail of particles as it travels. Though the player took to Reddit for assistance in identifying this seemingly unidentified flying object, a closer inspection revealed it to be a Wither skull projectile. These explosive entities, fired exclusively by Minecraft‘s Wither boss, will continue on their path until they collide with an obstacle, and will load in whenever a player is within render distance – meaning that the projectile must have been fired at an earlier point when the player battled the Wither and, remarkably, was re-discovered by chance while the player was exploring the skies.
This is a rare instance, but certainly not the rarest thing that can happen in the game. Other Minecraft players share some of their own rare encounters within the game occasionally, such as mobs generating with full suits of diamond armor or emerald ore blocks generating within the deepslate layer. For some comparison, the odds of a zombie naturally spawning with full diamond armor sits at approximately 0.04%.
How Recent Minecraft Updates Have Added to the Game’s Exploration
Some of the more recent updates to Minecraft have had a big focus on exploration as well, with updates over the past few years completely overhauling cave systems and the Nether while also adding new biomes and structures. Minecraft‘s next major update will continue this trend, bringing in trial chamber structures packed with challenging combat encounters.
Minecraft
Minecraft is a sandbox video game that puts players in procedurally generated worlds and offers them no guidance whatsoever in where to go or what to do, creating a sense of freedom that was unparalleled in 2011. Minecraft has gone on to become the highest-selling video game of all time.
