Minecraft update adds health and death to Survival Multiplayer mode

Minecraft creator Notch released an update for Minecraft today adding health and the ability to die to Multiplayer Survival mode. The update addresses the two main features missing from Survival Mode, and is the last major milestone before Minecraft enters beta.

Notch also mentions a few fixes he intends to make in the future, such as "visible armor on players and mobs (sheep!), and some tweaks to reduce laggy moving mobs. And bows and arrows."

Notch has always said that the completion of multiplayer survival mode would signal Minecraft's transition from alpha into beta. All that remains is some tweaks to the inventory system, and the bugfixes he mentioned, after that we can look forward to the next era of Minecraft. For more news on the game's ongoing development, check out Notch's blog .

For more adventures in Minecraft, check out our Minecraft Experiment .

Part of the UK team, Tom was with PC Gamer at the very beginning of the website's launch—first as a news writer, and then as online editor until his departure in 2020. His specialties are strategy games, action RPGs, hack ‘n slash games, digital card games… basically anything that he can fit on a hard drive. His final boss form is Deckard Cain.