Today Mojang held a Minecraft live event and one of the longest awaited upgrades for the iconic game was finally unveiled. The Vibrant Visuals upgrade will be coming soon to Minecraft: Bedrock Edition, and later to the Minecraft: Java Edition.
The announcement, also posted on the Minecraft blog, comes after years of people hoping for a major graphical upgrade to Minecraft. As of right now they haven’t announced any specific platforms as it is only in the preview stage, but PC is likely the safe bet to start. Considering Minecraft has been around for almost 15 years and spanning 3 generations now this update will surely be welcomed by the community.
A New Era
Mojang describes the Vibrant Visuals upgrade as a “visual graphics upgrade that will transform the way players experience Minecraft.” Chief Creative Officer Jens Bergensten says it is “a new look that still stays true to our creative principles. The studio says the thing player should most notice is the interplay of light and shadows.
Lighting and shadows continue to be the emphasis on everything with Vibrant Visuals. The post goes on to say:
Improvements including volumetric lighting mean you'll be able to watch the sun's rays carve across the Overworld, and every block will cast its own shadow. Light will shine through your windows, and you'll be able to see reflections in water and on the surface of metallic blocks, while subsurface scattering brings a gentle glow to leaves and grass. "Water is one of my favorite improvements," said Game Art Director Jasper Boerstra. "It looks absolutely amazing."
The studio is really putting a lot of hype into this update, saying they’ve been working on it for quite some time now. The goal is eventually to bring it to as many platforms and editions as possible but it will take time to test and implement everything. For right now it will only be coming to the Bedrock edition but eventually will come to the Java edition. The Java version is currently being coded for so it likely won’t be too long.
While no specifics were given, the update will go into preview/beta soon. Mojang will provide an update when it is available for testing and which devices it will be on first.
