Today is a big day for Minecraft fans. At Minecraft Live, Mojang announced not only a drop of new features but also a major graphics overhaul. Vibrant Visuals, which will soon be available in the game, will feature directional lighting, volumetric fog, and "thousands of individually crafted elements" to elevate the experience.
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.
Mojang notes that the update is only for the visual aspect of the game and that it runs locally without any impact on gameplay mechanics. This means there will be no advantage or disadvantage for players on realms with and without Vibrant Visuals. The graphics revamp will also work with old worlds.
At first, Vibrant Visuals will be available on Minecraft: Bedrock Edition, but Mojang also plans to bring it to Minecraft: Java Edition. For now, there is no information on what devices will support the complete revamped graphics featureset at launch, so look out for future announcements from developers. Also, Mojang is not ready to share any launch dates or ETA, but it promises to let gamers test early versions of the update on select devices with Minecraft: Bedrock Edition preview and beta.
Minecraft Vibrant Visuals is Mojang's second attempt to add richer graphics to Minecraft. In 2017, the studio announced the Super Duper Graphics Pack DLC for Windows 10 and Xbox One X (then Project Scorpio). However, two years later, Mojang canceled the project, claiming it was too difficult to implement. Now, the studio appears to be ready to give it another go. Hopefully, this time, they will be able to pull it off and launch the update on more platforms, not just Xbox and PC.
You can read more about Vibrant Visuals here.
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