Minecraft players will choose a new mob during Minecon Earth

At this year's Minecon (called Minecon Earth) players will be able to vote for the next mob coming to Minecraft. The shortlist has been whittled down to four, and the candidates include a stingray, a monstrous squid with a mouth that splits four ways, and what looks like some kind of dog/crocodile mashup with a bulbous head.

You'll be able to vote by text or online after the event starts on November 18, and the team will reveal more details about the four mobs next week. The three that aren't selected will be thrown in a dusty filing cabinet, never to see the light of day again. Which is sad, really.

Here's the best shot of the four mobs taken from the video above (click the full screen icon to see them up close):

So, what can we glean from that? Well, the top left is the squid-like creature, although it appears to have some kind of sticky rope dangling from its mouth. I'm thinking something akin to Half Life's barnacle that will suck you up given half the chance.

On the top right is the mean-looking stingray, while on the bottom left is what I described as the dog-crocodile hybrid: it's got four legs, a large head and a mischievous mouth that looks like it's hiding pointed teeth.

Rounding out the lineup is a creature that looks similar to Minecraft's blaze, with limbs floating around a head on top of which sits a crown. Or a helmet. Or something.

Which one do you like the look of?

Samuel is a freelance journalist and editor who first wrote for PC Gamer nearly a decade ago. Since then he's had stints as a VR specialist, mouse reviewer, and previewer of promising indie games, and is now regularly writing about Fortnite. What he loves most is longer form, interview-led reporting, whether that's Ken Levine on the one phone call that saved his studio, Tim Schafer on a milkman joke that inspired Psychonauts' best level, or historians on what Anno 1800 gets wrong about colonialism. He's based in London.