Minecraft

Minecraft's music and sound effects were produced by German musician Daniel Rosenfeld, better known as C418.[92] The background music in Minecraft is instrumental ambient music. On 4 March 2011, Rosenfeld released a soundtrack titled Minecraft – Volume Alpha; it includes most of the tracks featured in Minecraft, as well as other music not featured in the game.[93] Kirk Hamilton of Kotaku chose the music in Minecraft as one of the best video game soundtracks of 2011.[94] On 9 November 2013, Rosenfeld released the second official soundtrack, titled Minecraft – Volume Beta, which includes the music that was added in later versions of the game.[95][96] A physical release of Volume Alpha, consisting of CDs, black vinyl, and limited-edition transparent green vinyl LPs, was issued by indie electronic label Ghostly International on 21 August 2015.[97][98]

Mods

A wide variety of user-generated downloadable content for Minecraft, such as modifications, texture packs and custom maps, exists and is available on the Internet. Modifications of the Minecraft code, called mods, add a variety of gameplay changes, ranging from new blocks, new items, new mobs to entire arrays of mechanisms to craft.[99][100] The modding community is responsible for a substantial supply of mods from ones that enhance gameplay, such as minimaps, waypoints, and durability counters, to ones that add to the game elements from other video games and media.

Community-created resource packs, which alter certain game elements including textures and sounds, are also available.[101] Players can also create their own maps, which often contain specific rules, challenges, puzzles and quests, and share them for others to play.[53] In August 2012, Mojang added adventure mode[54] for custom maps and in October 2012, Mojang added command blocks,[56] which were created specially for custom maps.

The Xbox 360 Edition supports downloadable content, which is available to purchase via the Xbox Games Store; these content packs usually contain additional character skins.[102] It later received support for texture packs in its twelfth title update while introducing "mash-up packs", which combines texture packs with skin packs and changes to the game's sounds, music and user interface.[103] The first mash-up pack (and by extension, the first texture pack) for the Xbox 360 Edition was released on 4 September 2013, and was themed after the Mass Effect franchise.[104] Unlike the PC version, however, the Xbox 360 Edition does not support player-made mods or custom maps.[105] A cross-promotional resource pack based on the Super Mario franchise by Nintendo was released for the Wii U Edition worldwide on 17 May 2016.[106] A mash-up pack based on Fallout was announced for release on the Wii U Edition.[107]

In June 2017, Mojang released an update known as the "Discovery Update".[108] The update includes a new map, a new game mode, the "Marketplace", a catalogue of user-generated content that gives Minecraft creators "another way to make a living from the game", and more.[109][110][111]

Personal computer versions

The game can run on multiple operating systems, including Microsoft Windows, macOS, and Linux.[58][112] Apart from Minecraft: Java Edition and Minecraft for Windows 10, there are other versions of Minecraft for PC, including Minecraft Classic, Minecraft 4K, and Minecraft: Education Edition.

Minecraft Classic is an older version of Minecraft that was first available online and can be played through the game's launcher.[113]
Unlike newer versions of Minecraft, the Classic version is free to play, though it is no longer updated. It functions much the same as creative mode, allowing players to build and destroy any and all parts of the world either alone or in a multiplayer server. There are no computer creatures in this mode, and environmental hazards such as lava do not damage players. Some blocks function differently since their behavior was later changed during development.[114][115][116]

Minecraft 4K is a simplified version of Minecraft similar to the Classic version that was developed for the Java 4K game programming contest "in way less than 4 kilobytes".[117] The map itself is finite—composed of 64×64×64 blocks—and the same world is generated every time. Players are restricted to placing or destroying blocks, which consist of grass, dirt, stone, wood, leaves, and brick.[118]

Minecraft: Education Edition is a version of Minecraft created specifically for educational institutions and was launched 1 November 2016.[119] It includes a Chemistry Resource Pack,[120] free lesson plans on the Minecraft: Education Edition website, and two free companion applications: Code Connection and Classroom Mode.[121]

Minecraft for Windows 10 is currently exclusive to Microsoft's Windows 10 operating system. The beta for it launched on the Windows Store on 29 July 2015.[122] This version has the ability to play with Xbox Live friends, and to play local multiplayer with owners of Minecraft on other Bedrock platforms. Other features include the ability to use multiple control schemes, such as a gamepad, keyboard, or touchscreen (for Microsoft Surface and other touchscreen-enabled devices), virtual reality support, and to record and take screenshots in-game via the built-in GameDVR.[123]

Pocket/Bedrock Edition

On 16 August 2011, Minecraft: Pocket Edition was released for the Xperia Play on the Android Market as an early alpha version. It was then released for several other compatible devices on 8 October 2011.[124][125] An iOS version of Minecraft was released on 17 November 2011.[126] A port was made available for Windows Phones shortly after Microsoft acquired Mojang.[127] The port concentrates on the creative building and the primitive survival aspect of the game, and does not contain all the features of the PC release. On his Twitter account, Jens Bergensten said that the Pocket Edition of Minecraft is written in C++ and not Java, due to iOS not being able to support Java.[128] Gradual updates are periodically released to bring the port closer to the PC version.[129]

On 10 December 2014, in observance of Mojang's acquisition by Microsoft, a port of Pocket Edition was released for Windows Phone 8.1.[130] On 18 January 2017, Microsoft announced that it would no longer maintain the Windows Phone versions of Pocket Edition.[131] On 19 December 2016, the full version of Minecraft: Pocket Edition was released on iOS, Android and Windows Phone. On 31 July 2017, the Pocket Edition portion of the name was dropped and the apps were renamed simply as Minecraft.[132] The Pocket Edition's engine, known as "Bedrock", was ported to non-mobile platforms Windows 10, Xbox One, Gear VR, Apple TV, Fire TV, and Nintendo Switch.[133][134][135] Versions of the game on the Bedrock engine are collectively referred to as the "Bedrock Edition".

Console versions