During the weekend's Minecraft Live stream, Mojang announced the upcoming 'Vibrant Visuals' update that will land soon for the Bedrock Edition of the best-selling game ever.
The developers described it as the studio's vision for what the game should look like when injected with modern graphics features, such as directional lighting, volumetric fog, dynamic shadows, water reflections, and more.
Improvements such as volumetric lighting mean players will see the sun's rays cut across the overworld, with each block casting its own shadow. Light will shine through windows, and you'll be able to see reflections not only in water but also on the surface of metal blocks, while subsurface scattering adds a soft glow to leaves and grass. Mobs and items will also have more glow - spider eyes will be even more menacing in the dark, and torches will cast a glowing path back to your build. This will be particularly striking while in the deep dark.
Mojang clarified that Vibrant Visuals is merely a cosmetic update to Minecraft. As such, it won't affect the gameplay mechanics in any way. This means that existing lighting mechanics, such as when enemy mobs are allowed to burn, crop growth, daylight detectors, mob farms, and more will continue to work exactly as before. This is important because it makes it so players in the same realm can all play together, whether they are using Vibrant Visuals or not. During Minecraft Live, Art Director Jasper Boerstra said:
Vibrant Visuals is backward compatible with Old Worlds, and it runs locally - so you can play with friends who don't have it enabled.
The developers are currently testing Vibrant Visuals on various devices compatible with Bedrock Edition. Soon, this version will be available via beta or preview for users to test. Mojang also said they will eventually port this graphics update to the Java Edition, too.
Of course, if you have a powerful PC with GeForce RTX hardware, Minecraft With RTX remains the best way to experience the game from a visual standpoint.
About the author: With over two decades of experience in gaming journalism, Alessio Palumbo has led the gaming vertical at Wccftech since August 2015. He started working at a young age for Italian websites like Everyeye.it, Gamestar.it, Nextgame.it, and Multiplayer.it before kickstarting the indie English-language publication Worlds Factory as its founder and Editor in Chief. In the last decade, he has coordinated the overall output of Wccftech's gaming section, managed PR relations, assigned reviews, produced daily news coverage, edited gaming content as needed, and delivered game reviews. Arguably, his trademark content is the long series of exclusive developer interviews that have been cited by Wikipedia and by the biggest news media and gaming publications. His passion for technology also makes him knowledgeable when it comes to gaming hardware and tech. His favorite genres include RPGs, MMORPGs, and action/adventure games.
Follow Wccftech on Google to get more of our news coverage in your feeds.
