Minecraft is getting pandas, crossbows, and more

The big news from Minecon Earth 2018 was that of spin-off co-op game Minecraft: Dungeons, but it wasn't the only announcement to come out of the convention. Mojang also detailed the next Minecraft update, Village and Pillage, which adds new NPCs like the librarian and the butcher, as well as new enemies called Pillagers and Beasts. Pillagers carry crossbows, and players will be able to craft their own to use against them.

Big changes to the way add-ons work have been announced too: "Previously, add-ons only allowed you to modify existing mobs in the game, but with New Entities you can add more mobs. You can use Data Driven Spawning to control which mobs spawn in your worlds. Animations will give you more customisation options, so you’ll be able to craft the horrifying eight-legged mob of your dreams/our nightmares. Particles will let you pretty up your mobs with cool effects. All of these features are on the way and you can try them in the Minecraft beta on October 3rd."

Scripting API is also close, and when it arrives it will be another step in Mojang embracing mods. As their blog post puts it, "We’ve never officially supported modding in Minecraft, but the Add-Ons system combined with the Scripting API is the beginning of the era where we do."

Panda bears are coming too, as are more cats, a floating theme park called Inspiration Island, and biome updates beginning with Taiga.

Jody's first computer was a Commodore 64, so he remembers having to use a code wheel to play Pool of Radiance. A former music journalist who interviewed everyone from Giorgio Moroder to Trent Reznor, Jody also co-hosted Australia's first radio show about videogames, Zed Games. He's written for Rock Paper Shotgun, The Big Issue, GamesRadar, Zam, Glixel, Five Out of Ten Magazine, and Playboy.com, whose cheques with the bunny logo made for fun conversations at the bank. Jody's first article for PC Gamer was about the audio of Alien Isolation, published in 2015, and since then he's written about why Silent Hill belongs on PC, why Recettear: An Item Shop's Tale is the best fantasy shopkeeper tycoon game, and how weird Lost Ark can get. Jody edited PC Gamer Indie from 2017 to 2018, and he eventually lived up to his promise to play every Warhammer videogame.