Minecraft introduces one new mob candidate: the grouchy little Glare
The first potential mob in this weekend's vote
Mojang's big all-things-Minecraft show Minecraft Live is coming up this weekend and, like last year, they'll have players voting on which new creature should be added to the game. They've shown off just one of the options so far, the Glare mob that can alert you to monster-spawning light levels. It seems like a neat little friend, from what we can see down here in the little teaser video, but I'm wondering if there's more to this new mob than they've let on. We'll be seeing more new mob options throughout this week as the show and the vote approach.
Minecraft's survival sandbox world is full of baddie monsters. There are skeletons and zombies and creepers, oh my. The trick is that they'll only spawn in places where it's dark enough. That means monsters will appear at night and inside caves when you venture deep enough. This newly proposed mob the Glare is a cute flying critter—made of what look like vines—who will alert you by getting grumpy when you've found an area where light levels are low enough to spawn monsters.
My initial reaction is that, while cute, it seems to solve a problem that doesn't exist. Isn't it usually obvious enough when you've entered dark, monster-infested sections of caves? There are more fiddly situations, such as doing a bit of civil planning to ensure that your local village is well-lit enough that it won't be infested with baddies all night. Even then, I'm quite used to popping open Minecraft's debug screen with F3 to be absolutely sure I don't have any rogue dark blocks.
Ah, but wait. I'd forgotten that Minecraft Bedrock—the Windows 10 version of the game that's also on mobile and consoles—doesn't have the debug menu. Perhaps this little pal will be quite helpful for all those players. Even if so, I'm hoping that the Glare has just a few other uses aside from pointing out dark spots.
The Glare is just the first of the mobs on this year's vote. Mojang say they'll be introducing more candidates throughout this week leading up to Minecraft Live on Saturday. Last year's Minecraft Live player vote chose the Glow Squid mob, which was added to the game in version 1.17 this June. It was up against two other mobs from Minecraft spinoff games. Perhaps the Glare will be joined by some other mobs with a focus on survival mode utility.
You'll be able to vote via Twitter for your pick during Minecraft Live, which premieres this Saturday, October 16th at 5pm BST (9am PDT) on YouTube and Twitch. Along with all Mojang's other Minecraft-related projects, we'll almost certainly hear more about their upcoming Minecraft update 1.18 with those big world generation changes and other remaining Caves & Cliffs features expected this winter.