The debut trailer for Netflix’s The Witcher series is finally out and it actually looks good, though that could be Henry Cavill’s muscles talking. And while we already know all about when the show takes place and who it stars, the trailer marks the first time we’ve seen everything in action.
So much happens in the trailer’s meager two minutes, so unless you’re scrutinizing every frame, odds are you’re going to miss some stuff. We’ve combed the trailer ourselves and turned to the internet to pull out as many interesting character reveals, plot details, and references to the Witcher books as possible.
Is Yennefer OK?
Early glimpses of Yennefer in the trailer depict a woman hunched over with a swollen cheek. That’s the norm for plenty of sorceresses in the world of the Witcher, who often become students of magic due to varying physical irregularities. Yennefer is no different. She, like many magic users, becomes beautiful through the use of magical glamours that mask her actual appearance. Looks like we’ll get to see her transformation in the show.
Hey, it’s the Isle of Thanedd!
That’s where sorceresses go to magic school, including Ciri for a bit. It’s also the setting for some big betrayals and terrific violence. I can’t wait to see how the show interprets those big beats.
What’s up with that wacky purple tree in the desert?
At first glance, I thought this was a scene from Ciri’s trip to the Frying Pan, which feels too far off to plop into season one. I wasn’t alone in my thinking either, but, twist! Showrunner Lauren Hissrich confirmed the purple desert tree is not related to the arc depicted in Time of Contempt. Get to making those theories.
The Dryads aren’t bright green, thank goodness
The Witcher show is taking a simple approach to its depiction of Dryads, the nymph-like humanoids that live in the forests of Brokilon. The games tend to depict them as nude green plant people, but the books describe them as very human-like with slightly greenish tints to their skin tone. The show is definitely leaning towards the latter.
That’s a Striga
A few quick clips depict Geralt going at it with a grimy humanoid, likely a Striga, which is one of the first monsters he dukes it out with in The Witcher short stories. Striga are women transformed into beastly monsters via a curse, something like a werewolf with hints of troll. Geralt dreams of his fight with the Striga in The Voice of Reason, the opening story in The Last Wish collection. And he dreams of it after some good sex. That’s our guy.
And that’s a Kikimora
There’s some debate over what that swamp spider is in the last shot of the trailer, but I’m banking on a Kikimora, monsters known to live underground or in, get this, swamps. It’s also one of the monsters he kills in the short stories before bringing it to Blaviken, where Geralt starts a major beef with just about everyone—on accident, of course.
Meet the Butcher of Blaviken
As this thread points out, when he looks all tore up and pissed may well be a formative scene set in Blaviken that earns Geralt a lifelong nickname: The Butcher of Blaviken. We’ll leave the show to tell the tale if you’re not aware, but it’s a classic bit where Geralt, ever the neutral, gets screwed over by everyone in an attempt to save everyone. Needless to say, a lot of people die, the blame gets pinned on Geralt, and he becomes feared throughout the continent. Poor guy.
Our boy’s casting Aard
Either Geralt’s getting about to blind a three-eyed monster or that boy’s casting the Aard sign. If you’re unfamiliar, witchers dabble in magic, much to the dismay of sorcerers who view the witchers’ practice as clumsy and contrived. But whatever, because Henry-Geralt is about to send someone flying across the room like a hot Jedi.
Emhyr the Hedgehog says hello
Here’s one that most people missed (including me). Some sharp-eyed folks in this Reddit thread might’ve spotted a quick glimpse of the future Emperor of Nilfgaard, Emhyr var Emreis. See, before the imposing bastard become a tyrant, he was cursed by a sorcerer to take on the appearance of a human-hedgehog hybrid. The curse did not make him go fast, unfortunately. We’ll leave the rest to the show since lifting the curse is its own adventure, but clearly, he doesn’t stay that way forever. Until we see how the show depicts Emhyr’s origins, all you really need to know is that the whole ordeal does not make him a cool, chill guy.
Minecraft is good for a lot of things: creating your own dream worlds, hanging out with friends, bludgeoning zombies to death with blocks of wood. Whether it’s good for browsing Reddit or not, I’m not sure: but it’s definitely possible, thanks to this plug-in created by Reddit user DeltaTwoForce.
As the gif below demonstrates, the plug-in turns Reddit into a tight descending dungeon, with each floor dedicated to its own thread. Once in, a sign is used to specify which subreddit the user wants to visit, and then the plug-in generates it, complete with thread title, the number of interactions, and an embed of the thread’s main image. Beneath the image is a chest, and inside is a collection of books with each response written inside.
This is a .gif of the plug-in in action, created by the plug-in’s programmer, DeltaTwoForce:
Is this a pleasant way of reading Reddit? That’s for you to decide, in my opinion: no. But the point is that it’s possible, just like lots of other ridiculous things are possible in Minecraft, such as Atari 2600 emulators, BASIC interpreters and mobile phones.
According to DeltaTwoForce, the plug-in is not safe to use on survival servers because it will clear out your inventory. It’s available to download here, and you can see the original Reddit thread here.
What are the best Minecraft mods? It’s a question that’s been asked for generations – since a young Plato attempted to tweak his game at the knee of Socrates. Or something. As new Minecraft mods have been steadily flowing out since the game’s first public release, there are a whole heap to choose from.
Minecraft is a blocky phenomenon. It’s the only game to ever exist that allows you to construct a castle the height of Jack’s famous beanstalk and fall through an increasingly challenging abyss for an eternity – but it could do with some Minecraft mods to improve things. From interface changes to tools to aid your hours of exploration, you have the option to make Mojang’s classic even better on PC.
The following list compiles some of the best Minecraft mods out there right now. All are divided into sections, depending on what you want to do with the game – from simple changes to deep, intricate Minecraft mods you can get lost in for months.
Every Minecraft mod on this list comes with its own installation instructions that you should follow closely, and you’ll likely also need to downgrade your Minecraft version for many of them – in most cases, version 1.7.10 works best. To help with that, you can try MultiMC– a useful bit of software that lets you manage multiple Minecraft mod installs.
Alternatively, if faffing around in obscure folders isn’t your cup of tea, then grab a modpack instead – which comes with everything preinstalled and preconfigured. We recommend either Feed The Beast’s Direwolf20 1.7.10 pack (which comes with a YouTube series that’ll teach you how to use many of the included mods), the Tekkit Pack, or making your own modpack with Curse Voice. If you have trouble with any of them Google is probably a good bet.
Shall we dig into our list of the best Minecraft mods?
MINECRAFT INTERFACE MODS
When you’ve got lots of Minecraft mods installed you’ll probably find that Minecraft’s default UI doesn’t cut it any longer. The following downloads make playing modded Minecraft a more pleasant experience.
OPTIFINE / FASTCRAFT
Got a beefy computer? Make Minecraft look incredible with Optifine, which adds support for HD textures and more control over graphical options. Alternatively, if you’re playing on a potato, grab Fastcraft– it significantly improves performance on lower-end machines, particularly with lots of Minecraft mods installed.
JOURNEYMAP
Everyone likes to know where they’re going. Journeymap maps your world as you explore, lets you mark waypoints of interest, and can even warn you when mobs are sneaking up behind you. View the resulting map in-game as a minimap, or in fullscreen, or even in an external web browser.
NOT ENOUGH ITEMS
If you need an antidote to the pain of alt-tabbing to a wiki while playing Minecraft then turn to Not Enough Items (or NEI). It lets you look up the recipe for any item from any installed Minecraft mod through a nifty interface on Minecraft’s inventory screen.
WAILA
WAILA stands for “What Am I Looking At,” and it’s a godsend when you’ve got loads of mods installed. Simply point your crosshair at a block, and it’ll tell you what it is, and which mod it comes from. With newer mods, it can also tell you about the state of that block – how full a tank of water is, for example, or the charge level on a battery. You’ll need NEI to run it.
INVENTORY TWEAKS
Install Inventory Tweaks and you’ll soon wonder how you lived without it. Tools that run out of durability are automatically replaced in your hotbar, stacks of blocks are automatically refilled, and a simple middle-click will sort your chests and inventory. It’s also endlessly customisable.
PLAYABLE MINECRAFT IN A CHEST
Mini Minecraft, a playable version of Minecraft shrunk down to the size of a chest. User SethBling posted a video of the mod in action on YouTube with a link to download it in the description. This mod has all the same features as the original game, except it’s you can control the whole thing through the interface of a Minecraft chest. When you leave the chest you’ll see your actions laid out in front of you as if you’d been working in 2D the whole time.
MINECRAFT CREATIVE MODS
For many people, crafting awe-inspiring structures is what Minecraft is all about. The following mods will dramatically expand your creative options, from new types of wood to proper furniture.
CHISEL 2
Minecraft only has one cobblestone texture. Chisel 2 has 24. In fact, it adds alternative textures to a huge number of the game’s default blocks as well as blocks that come with other mods in this list – letting you create any decor you desire in your in-game constructions.
CARPENTER’S BLOCKS
Cubes are great and all, but occasionally you want a slope, right?Carpenter’s Blocks delivers those slopes, alongside beds, buttons, doors, flowerpots, torches, and more, all of which can be customised with the texture of any other block. Ever wanted a netherrack ladder? This is the mod that’ll do it.
DECOCRAFT
If you’d like a bit more variety when it comes to decorating your world, Decocraft is the mod for you. It adds craftable chairs, tables, bowls, bottles, lamps, stuffed toys, beer kegs, and even a kitchen sink. The full list is almost endless, so dive in to the Wiki to see the full range of options.
BIBLIOCRAFT
Bibliocraft also offers a bunch of aesthetically-pleasing blocks, but these ones come with their own functionality. Display cases and shelves let you show off your trophies, while a printing press lets you copy in-game books. It even adds a monocle for the distinguished gentlemen amongst you.
PIG MANURE
If Minecraft can be accused of lacking one thing, it’s poo. This humble Minecraft mod solves that problem with aplomb, not just making it so your pigs drop a steaming pile of the proverbial every now and again, but instead providing you with a new resource to master in Minecraft. Collect the droppings and you can use them instead of bone meal to fertilize your crops. Alternatively, you can fire them in a furnace and produce bricks that you can use to build a house – just don’t use them with white wool.
BACTERIA MOD
Bacteria simply never goes out of fashion, so it’s about time Mincraft modders brought it into the creative sandbox. This mod lets you cultivate a range of different bacterias, each of which will perform different tasks – destructive or creative – and set them loose on the world. Just be sure to contain it properly, especially if you’re experimenting in your own base.
PAM’S HARVESTCRAFT
Bring some serious variation to your Minecraft diet with this produce-laden mod that adds over 1,100 new foods and items, including 60 crops, 17 types of fish, tofu for vegetarian and vegan dishes, and 36 fruit or item bearing trees. The end result is a Minecraft diet that’s equal parts lavish and balanced. If you want to make this a necessity rather than just a fun extension to vanilla Minecraft, use it alongside Hunger Overhaul and The Spice of Life, which both punish your poor eating habits.
MINECRAFT EXPLORATION MODS
Some people prefer the life of a nomad to that of a builder. The following mods either spice up world generation, add new worlds to explore, or give you the tools you’ll need to explore them. To the Far Lands, and beyond!
BIOMES O’PLENTY
Let’s start with the Overworld. Biomes O’Plenty adds a ridiculous 80 new biomes and 12 sub-biomes to Minecraft – from Alps to Wasteland. It also adds a little more variety to tools, armour, food, colour, and adds a few extra blocks to build with.
LOTSOMOBS
Working in much the same way as Biomes O Plenty, LotsOMobs adds a staggering 25 new mobs to further enrich your Minecraft world and make your biomes that bit more realistic. Gone are the days when squid were the only creature in the sea and chickens roamed free across the savannah. If you’d like giraffes, narwhal, seagulls, elephants, and even dinosaurs to appear in your game, then this is the mod for you.
CANDYCRAFT
Here’s a great exploration mod for people who avoid the Nether on the grounds of it being just a bit too demonic and hellscapey. CandyCraftoffers sweet-toothed Minecrafters a new realm to explore that’s made entirely of candy. There are sugar-coated critters to kill, marshmallow tools to equip, and honeycomb armour to wear as you make your way through this sickly sweet realm. Eat your heart out, Hansel and Gretel.
GALACTICRAFT
Boldly go where no Steve has been before with Galacticraft, an expansive mod that let’s you travel to, explore, and even colonise an entire solar system. Aside from all the interplanetary sightseeing, the main draw of this mod is the sheer amount of effort you’ll have to put into it in order to escape Earth and its famously surly bonds. It’s a compelling and brilliantly constructed series of missions that rewards you with gameplay opportunities, like building a moonbase, pimping out your spaceship, and fighting evolved mobs on Mars.
BETTERPORTALS
Portals are little problematic when exploring new realms in Minecraft. You can’t see the world you’re about to enter, which can be pretty scary, but also you have to sit through a loading screen. The BetterPortals Minecraft mod recreates portals so you can see what world you’re about to enter, but also so there’s no loading screen to break the immersion. There are a few incompatibilities as with any mod, so do take a look at the download page for this.
QUIVERBOW
Not nearly enough mods focus on improving that most ancient and beloved of weapons – the bow and arrow. Quiverbow overhauls the options available to budding archers by providing them with a bounty of projectile-based weaponry. From basic additions like the humble crossbow to snow cannons and firework launchers, this is the ultimate mod for any aspiring Minecraft sniper.
MINECRAFT AUTOMATION MODS
There’s nothing like a good factory setup in your Minecraft base – automatically mining and producing resources so you never run out. The following mods offer everything you need to fully automate almost every aspect of modded Minecraft, and work best in conjunction with some of the deeper mods in the final section.
ROPE BRIDGE MOD
Chasms are a constant inconvenience for Minecraft explorers: you spend minutes jumping up the highest mountain only to find an annoying series of gaps between its peaks. Make mountaineering easier for yourself by installing this handy mod, which provides you with a portable grappling gun that will automatically build a bridge from where you’re standing to where it’s aimed. It’s also particularly useful for building tree-top fortresses.
CATERPILLAR
Digging is the bread and butter of Minecraft, which is why someone made this automated tunnelling machine, freeing you of the chore so you can explore, kill mobs, and meticulously redecorate your base. You’ll have to build it yourself, but once you do, you’ll be saving hours in virtual labour. The drill head is upgradable too, with different materials offering their own benefits, so there’s some scope for you to get really stuck into this miner’s delight.
PROGRESSIVE AUTOMATION
This mod adds basic automated devices for everything from farming to forestry. The best bit about Progressive Automation is that each machine can be upgraded as you progress, meaning fewer enormous rebuilds further down the line.
APPLIED ENERGISTICS 2
After staying a while in a large base storage starts to become an issue. Applied Energistics 2 lets you turn matter into energy, storing items on hard drives that can be accessed wirelessly from anywhere in your base. It’s fantastically useful, especially for the hoarders amongst you.
BIG REACTORS
Ever wanted to be a nuclear engineer without learning about physics and going through multiple years of higher education? Then Big Reactors is the mod for you. Big Reactors allows you to build massive, fully configurable reactors in order to cope with the power demands of all those other industrial mods you’ve been tinkering with. Better still, it’s designed to interface with ComputerCraft, meaning you can monitor, regulate, and program your power station from a safe distance – should you tinker too much and cause a meltdown that is.
COMPUTERCRAFT AND RFTOOLS
Finally, we’d be remiss not to mention ComputerCraft. Itadds fully-programmable computers and assorted peripherals into the Minecraft world. It also adds RFTools, which lets you monitor and maintain a complex power network. Both are vital tools for any kind of automated base.
MINECRAFT EXPANSIVE MODS
That just leaves the largest mods – the ones that reward a significant time investment with substantial changes to vanilla Minecraft. We’d recommend tackling just one or two of these at a time, even if they’re bundled together in a modpack, for your sanity more than anything else. By the time you reach their endgame you’ll be the master of all you survey.
DRACONIC EVOLUTION
If you’ve managed to clad yourself in diamond and long for some new endgame gear to show off to your friends then you might want to install the Draconic Evolution mod. As well as adding heaps of new high-tier weaponry and armour, Draconic Evolution also has its own energy system that’s essentially Minecraft’s answer to cold fusion. Other features include a weather manipulation system, an enormous chest with built-in crafting facilities, teleporters, and mob spawners. In short, it’s the ideal mod for anyone who’s mastered vanilla Survival mode.
THAUMCRAFT
Being a wizard is pretty awesome, and that’s no different in the world of Minecraft. Thaumcraft lets you manipulate the magic energies found in every in-game item to create powerful wands, golems to do your bidding, and essence-infused items and tools. It hooks beautifully into several other mods.
SIMPLY JETPACKS
Jetpacks make everything better. Everything. That’s why this humble mod isn’t looking to burden you with countless new systems and recipes to remember, it’s just trying to give ordinary Minecrafters the gift of instantaneous flight. Soar into the skies powered by Redstone Flux, letting you avoid hazards and move around the map much quicker. Higher level jetpacks will also act as armour and even negate fall damage, so there’s plenty of reason to invest a little time into this nifty add-on.
BLOOD MAGIC
Occasionally, Minecraft is all a little too cute and fluffy. That’s where modders come in, introducing some ritualistic dark arts to give the vanilla game some edge. Blood Magic– that most heinous of all magics – introduces a few new systems and mechanics based around drawing power from the blood of mobs. Once you’ve harvested enough life essence you can use it at a Blood Altar in order to craft new items like a Dagger of Sacrifice.
MINEFACTORY RELOADED
Arguably the best all-round technology mod is Minefactory Reloaded. It adds heaps of machines and devices that allow you to automate almost everything – from breeding cows to playing in-game records. As an added bonus, it also works particularly well with many of the mods in the previous section.
BUILDCRAFT
Mining by hand is a thing of the past and everyone knows it. That’s why there’s BuildCraft, a hugely expansive mod that essentially allows you to put vanilla Minecraft through its own industrial revolution. From automated quarries to autocrafting tables that will pump out any desired item with the right ingredients on tap, this mod let’s you go full scale with your production lines.
HATS
From the ridiculous to the sublime, this cosmetic mod adds over 100 hats to Minecraft, ensuring you’ve always got some way of surprising and, in some cases, shocking your friends. You’ll have to spend some time hunting the hats down, though, as they’re programmed to randomly spawn on mobs around the world – expect to see a squid with a phone booth on its head or a creeper sporting a sombrero.
PNEUMATICCRAFT
PneumaticCraft swaps out power for pressurized air making for a mod that’s both highly volatile and incredibly rewarding. Whether it’s air cannons, programmable drones, or a range of assembly machines, this mod adds a host of mechanical and automated options to Minecraft.
If those are not are the best Minecraft mods, we don’t know what are. These improvements and tweaks will transform your blocky bundle of joy and keep you playing even longer, much like the Minecraft maps that will transport you absolutely anywhere and the Minecraft servers that further keep things fresh. For now, though, we’re ready to get lost in Minecraft all over again.
Minecraft Java Edition patch 1.14.4 is now available, and is set to be the final update update for 1.14 before Mojang moves onto the new features of 1.15. The fresh patch promises a ream of bug fixes, improved performance, and a bunch of improvements to villager behaviour – in addition to an amusing fix for the suspicious stew item.
“Suspicious stew made from poppies now gives you night vision instead of speed,” so you can be sure you’re getting exactly the right kind of high from your poppy seed-based comestibles. Maybe it’s less important than the performance improvements, memory leak fixes, and built-in /debug function for detailed bug reports, but it is entertaining.
The bigger selection of changes focus on villagers. They now stock more items, feature improved pathfinding performance, and will remember their gossip if they become zombified. They can now work without restocking at the same time, and will now wait with restocking until they have appropriate trades.
You can read the full list of changes – and all the bug fixes – on the official site.
Microsoft is returning to Gamescom this August to flaunt its Xbox wares once more, and would like you to know what happening this time around – including a first public hands-on of the intriguing Minecraft Dungeons and Gears of War 5’s Horde Mode.
This year’s Gamescom, once again being held in Cologne, will run for four days from 20th August. Microsoft, however, will be kicking things off a day early, holding a special Gamescom-themed episode of its Inside Xbox show, live from Cologne’s Gloria Theatre. The latest “news, games, accessories, and features” are promised, with proceedings scheduled to begin at 4pm BST on Monday, 19th August.
Should you be interested in tuning in, you’re not exactly short of options; it’ll be streamed via Twitch, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Mixer, and the official Xbox website.
Later in the week, from Wednesday, 21st August, until Friday, 23rd August, Microsoft will be holding a free public live event that it’s calling Xbox Open Doors, situated at the Gloria Theatre. This will play host to “community events, game tournaments, panel sessions and other exciting experiences”, and more details are due at a later date.
Within Gamescom itself, Microsoft’s Xbox Booth will feature a variety of playable games – including the aforementioned first public hands-on of Minecraft Dungeons and Gears of War 5’s Horde Mode – with Project xCloud also getting an airing somewhere along the line. Halo: The Master Chief Collection and Age of Empires 2: Definitive Edition will make an appearance in Microsoft’s PC-focussed area, and there’s an official gear shop too.
Microsoft’s Xbox Booth can be found in Hall 8 of the Koelnmesse, for those Gamescom attendees keen to pop along and see what’s what.
