Minecraft Fireflies: What happened to Fireflies in Minecraft 1.19?
Fireflies were originally going to arrive in Minecraft 1.19 - where did they go?
Want to know what happened to Fireflies in Minecraft 1.19? Fireflies were a new mob originally planned to arrive in the next Minecraft update, Minecraft 1.19, but that is no longer the case. Mojang recently revealed that Fireflies were scrapped and will no longer appear when the update launches on 7 June. This move, due to some fan backlash about the function of Fireflies in-game, may have seemed surprising so close to launch.
Below, we'll explain what happened to Fireflies in Minecraft 1.19 and why they were removed. We'll also cover what they would've done in-game had they been added as originally planned.
What happened to Fireflies in Minecraft 1.19?
Mojang released this video on 10 May to answer a few details about Minecraft 1.19 before launch. One of the questions posed was "What happened to the Fireflies?", to which producer Anna Lungdren responded that the community had reached out and taught the dev team about the harmful impact that some species of firefly have on Frogs, which will also arrive in The Wild Update. Since Fireflies were originally going to function as a food source for Frogs, it seems that Mojang decided to change course to avoid portraying a harmful image in-game.
Instead, Frogs will now eat Small Slimes, which will make them enter love mode. That means that to breed Frogs, you must feed them Small Slimes instead of Fireflies, as was originally planned.
Had Fireflies come to Minecraft in The Wild Update, they would have been a very unique mob. Fireflies were going to be just a few pixels big, which would've made them the smallest mob in Minecraft. They would've also illuminated their surroundings with a dim glow, which would mean they could've also been used as decorations in player creations.
In the same video, Lungdren goes on to share that while Fireflies will remain in their ideas library as a concept, there are no current plans to add them in an upcoming update. Fortunately, fans will still be able to get some cool new lights for their base. Frogs will also eat Small Magma Cubes, which will cause them to produce a Froglight. This is a luminescent cube that will glow in a certain colour - purple, green, or yellow - depending on the Frog variant by which it is produced.
That’s everything you need to know about Fireflies in Minecraft. If you can’t wait for these beautiful bugs to arrive, take a look at our list of shaders to find another way to make your world prettier. To find something new to explore, check out our list of the best seeds in Minecraft. There’s plenty more that you can look forward to in The Wild Update, including the addition of the Allay, which was the winner of the Minecraft Live 2021 mob vote!