2025 is going to be a neat year for Minecraft. Not only is the survival crafting game moving to more frequent feature drops, it’s also getting flying mounts and a big boost to its more than decade-old graphics. Revealed during a special Minecraft Live, Vibrant Visuals will make every pixelated world full of new life and possibilities thanks to the power of better lighting and reflections.
The additions to Mojang’s 3D sandbox that first officially debuted back in 2011 were on display at March 2025's edition of Minecraft Live, a presentation that will now take place two times a year to match the faster cadence of smaller but more impactful feature drops arriving alongside them. The first of these is Vibrant Visuals, a visual overhaul coming the the Bedrock edition of Minecraft this year on Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 5, and PC.
The developers say the update adds “thousands of individually crafted elements while preserving what makes Minecraft unique.” Alongside the tweaked appearance, volumetric lighting is the other key feature of Vibrant Visuals. Instead of the world looking flat, the new lighting will bring more depth and also improve reflections. Water shimmers and cast shadows look more stark. It all makes Minecraft look a lot more appealing, especially at sunset.
Happy Ghasts are another big deal. They’ll be able to carry small groups of players through the world, making survival mode more accessible. Players will find dried ghasts in the netherworld, bring them back to the overworld, re-hydrate them, and then poof: a cute, cloud-like chariot awaits. My kids are going to love it, until they start fighting over them.
What they won’t be fighting over is the new Player Locator bar that Mojang also briefly touched on during the event. Announced earlier this month, the new UI feature will make it easier for players to find one another across the map. No more looking around for striking landscape features and going, “I’m kinda, sorta, maybe 100 yards Northeast of the oak tree by the beach.” Instead, players will appear as color-coded blips on a horizontal bar near the bottom of the screen. This one is gonna save me a ton of time.
As with all of the other features, there no specific release date for this, but all of them should be coming in the next few months. Maybe by then we’ll also hear about any upgrades coming to a Switch 2 version of Minecraft. The Minecraft Movie is also out April 4, just two days after the Switch 2 Nintendo Direct.
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