Minecraft gets better down where it's wetter

After years of fannying about with such frivolities as 'mining' and 'crafting', Minecraft is now focusing on what's truly important: swimming outdoors. Version 1.13 of Minecraft's Java Edition, nicknamed Update Aquatic, is still swimming through development but the latest work-in-progress 'snapshot' build launched yesterday and is full of goodies. Dolphins! Icebergs! 'Conduit' blocks that keep you from drowning! Different water colours for different biomes! Why would you ever go on dry land again?

The snapshot 18w15a patch notes lay it out, though you might find the annotated fan wiki notes more useful. Especially since Subnautica, it's seemed a shame that Minecraft's oceans aren't livelier. Mojang have been working on this update for a fair while and I'm digging what I see.

Here's YouTuber "xisumavoid" showing off new undersea fun (and not using terrible language, as far as I heard):

That's nice, that. Those are oceans I want to hang around in.

Dolphins, new water, and other bits also arrived in the Windows 10 (and cross-platform) version of Minecraft this week with Beta - 1.2.20.1. Dolphins for everyone!

As ever, you'll likely want to wait until the update is finished--and probably for your favourite mods and then servers to update after that--but it's good to see this taking shape. It really is better down where it's wetter.