Minecraft is expanding in a big way. No longer will the massively popular construction game be fractured along console and platform lines. Thanks to the newly announced Bedrock Engine update, Minecraft will be connected across all platforms (except PlayStation), with more features so that Minecraft, just Minecraft, will be your one stop shop for everything you love about the game. Oh, and did you see how gorgeous it looks in 4K?
In a press preview for Minecraft's Bedrock Engine, Microsoft descriped the update as a future facing, unifying update that will prove Minecraft is “better together.” The impression I got however, was that Minecraft was making a big move towards evolving from a game, into a “creative platform.”
What the Bedrock update means is that edition names are gone, because there are no more editions. The Minecraft you buy on the Switch will be the same you buy on the Xbox which will be the same you buy on mobile. All the DLC you've ever bought on any version of Minecraft (sans PS4, PS3, Xbox 360, and Wii U) will jump with you across a shared account. It's not perfect yet, some DLC will encounter issues jumping from one console to another, but Microsoft is hard at work ironing out those issues.
Until the update, Minecraft fans have created individual marketplaces and servers to branch out their creative dreams. Not so with the update which will incorporate server experiences into the core game. These servers and realms can be discovered in game, which the developers are very excited about, primarily with the idea of bringing fanmade experiences into the core game. To help with the transition, Minecraft incorporated some of the most popular private servers like Lifeboat into the proper game.
Finally, Minecraft will add a 4K visual update in preperation for the Xbox One X's new graphical powers.
I have some reservations that Minecraft is soldifying a grip on the creative works of others, but it seems that both private Minecraft developers and the Minecraft team have come into a mutual agreement, and the chance for casual players to discover these new servers naturally in the course of just playing the base game is good for exposure. At launch, popular servers like Lifeboat, Mineplex, and ILVL PVP will be featured, with Minecraft reaching out to more private servers in the future. Minecraft is also expanding multiplayer teams from five to seven to help facilitate this new focus on interconnected play. In addition, there is an open application process for independent developers who feel that their servers will be a good fit for Minecraft.
Along with the Minecraft encyclopedia which will be included into the core game, this move sounds like a big assimilation for the game. Soon, Minecraft, the game itself, will be the only service you need to have access to literally all things Minecraft.
While that sounds like a natural conclusion, Minecraft's decentralized growth means that this is actually a pretty big deal. And while I'd hate to see the unofficial Minecraft weaken as a result of the Bedrock update, it is very interesting to see Minecraft essentially become a creative platform unto itself, something that has the potential for even further growth if need be.
Time will tell if the update's centralizing move ends up growing the game to even bigger heights than it is already. The Bedrock update hits this Summer.
Back in September, Microsoft and Mojang launched the Better Together update for Minecraft on Windows 10, Xbox One, iOS, and Android. This update allowed players on those devices to play together and access the Marketplace on any of those platforms.
The new Better Together versions of Minecraft are known collectively as the Bedrock Edition. The Bedrock games avoid the “___ Edition” naming scheme on their respective platforms, being just “Minecraft” instead of “Minecraft: Pocket Edition” or “Minecraft: Windows 10 Edition”. This is the new foundation and codebase Mojang wants to build upon, hence the name.
In the case of Minecraft on Xbox One, if you purchase the game now on the Xbox Store, it's the Bedrock Edition, called “Minecraft”. If you had the previous Minecraft: Xbox One Edition, you get the new version for free, but the old one remains installed on your console. This allows players to switch back and forth between both versions and players are finding they prefer the old Xbox One Edition.
If you go to the Microsoft Store page for Minecraft: Xbox One Edition, the game is rated at 4.5 stars out of 5 with 111,000 reviews. In contrast, the new Minecraft entry is rated at 2.5 stars out of 5, with 5,634 reviews as of this writing.
“The Xbox One Edition was designed for Xbox, this version is literally a port from PC. The creative inventory is a disarray and difficult to navigate, placing blocks is much slower as being precise is terribly difficult. The graphics are a disgrace, the game crashes every 30 mins, everything is laggy,” said one review. (Edited for spelling and formatting.) 1
“The new crafting and inventory menus are quite cumbersome and seem rushed. It now takes easily twice as long to perform trivial tasks like swapping items in these menus in creative mode. The previous setup was much more streamlined and easier to use,” added another review.
“I played this version in beta and it was not ready for a public release. There are numerous problems that went unaddressed or were flat out ignored. To list a few: Frame rate is extremely unstable and drops considerable. This version is not optimized for redstone and more complicated devices produce massive amounts of lag,” said one review from last month.
The previous Minecraft editions were customized for their specific platforms by 4J Studios, who no longer seem to be involved in the new versions. They took into account the technology behind each console or device, and tailored the releases to those platforms.
Players are saying that the Bedrock Edition represents a step back. There are lost features like large biomes, some players dislike the new UI and Creative mode controls, there are reported frame rate issues, lag, and crashes that didn't occur in previous editions, and some players can't even convert their worlds over to the new version. One of the top requests on the Minecraft support site is for a console UI for the Bedrock Editions on Xbox One.
Players on Xbox One have gone around the problem by simply playing the old Xbox One Edition, but Mojang isn't updating that version anymore. If players want new features, they'll need to upgrade eventually. Currently, the Nintendo Switch version is supposed to join the Better Together party at a later date, but some Switch players are hoping that update can be pushed down the line until the Bedrock codebase has seen some fixes. Hopefully, Mojang and Microsoft keep plugging away at the new unified Minecraft, because players aren't happy.
Not only is Minecraft one of the most popular games on the planet, but the block-based building game has also been used to teach more than 85 million students basic coding concepts and computer science.
Code.org, a computer science teaching initiative partnered up with Microsoft and Minecraft back in 2015 as one of the earliest adopters of using Minecraft as a teaching tool in classrooms.
Minecraft has been a part of three different Hour of Code teaching initiatives and quickly became one of the most popular activities, no doubt because students were already familiar with the game, or if this was their first encounter with Minecraft, fell in love with its easy to pick up mechanics.
Code.org cites Minecraft‘s “vast virtual world” and “just enough structure in its uniform blocks and limited types” to help promote teaching of basic computer science concepts, but also algebra, chemistry, or this writer's own field, history.
One Maine elementary school teacher, Mike Harvey, uses Minecraft in his own Code.org curriculum and praises the game's “recognizable characters, elements, and event sounds” as attractive ways to get students interested in coding.
Coding has become one of the most popular extracurricular activities in schools, with many districts opting to add full-time, or mandatory coding requirements into its everyday curriculum. And while AP Computer Science programs don't need to be the ultimate goal here, getting elementary school level kids interested in coding will hopefully set them up for a future in the widely expanding coding market in the future.
LOS ANGELES–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Minecraft is the juggernaut of kid gaming, backed by Microsoft and boasting nearly 144 million lifetime sales. A new study by Interpret confirms that Minecraft is still the most-played game among kids in the US, currently being played by over a quarter of gamers age 6-12. However, the title seems to have lost some steam recently. GameByte—an annual study of kids’ gaming habits and preferences—has tracked Minecraft playership since 2012, and the results of this year’s study show the first drops in active playership ever. Minecraft’s share of all gaming time by kids age 6-12 has dropped 5% since last year, although it still commands a hefty 13% of total game time.
A new study by Interpret confirms that Minecraft is still the most-played game among kids in the US.
These changes are small, but the dip into negative trending should worry fans of the game. One possible explanation is the recent rise of Roblox, a mod-friendly title that borrows Minecraft’s ethos of building and playing anything. Roblox still lags behind Minecraft (the study ranks it as the #2 kids game in the US by active playership), but its gains over the past 12 months are significant. Since last year’s study, Roblox’s active kid playership has more than doubled on both PC and console.
One thing that Minecraft and Roblox share is their ability to monopolize play time. Over one third of Roblox and Minecraft players report playing other games less because of these titles. This “one-game” phenomenon affects toys as well, causing a similar proportion of Roblox and Minecraft to play less with physical toys. “These players’ dedication to their game and the screen-time monopoly of these titles are having a big impact on their consumption of other games and toys,” noted Michael Cai, President of Interpret. “This means that game and toy makers not only have to contend with Minecraft, but also with Roblox, a rising star that may become its own juggernaut in time.”
GameByte is an annual, comprehensive survey of kids’ gaming behaviors and preferences in the US. For more information, please contact Diane LightWaight at diane.lightwaight@interpret.la or 323.794.3891.
Interpret is a full service market research firm focused on media, entertainment, and technology.
Here is everything we want to see paid off in the two climactic MCU installments.
It’s all been building to this: 18 films; 67 total characters. That’s a lot of narrative thread to weave. Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige and the directorial team of the Russo Brothers have promised that Avengers: Infinity Warand the as-yet untitled Avengers 4 will be a culmination of every single plot element introduced since 2008’s Iron Man. That’s a lot to ask. Can they possibly pull it off?
Next Tuesday will see the release of Thor: Ragnarok on DVD and Blu-ray (you can already purchase it on Digital HD), and it’s a disc packed with special features, mini-docs, bloopers, and the like. The one bonus feature that got our attention, though, is “Marvel Studios: The First Ten Years.” Towards the end of it, Feige declares:
“With ‘Infinity War,’ we’re paying off every little thread and every little tease that we’ve had in what will be 18 films prior to ‘Infinity War.’ There’s never been anything like this. Being able to, film after film, tease at a larger story. Really building these stories up into a giant conclusion. While at the same time introducing an entirely new direction for the future.”
For the obsessed like myself, who spend week after week anticipating the next link in the chain, the entire appeal of the MCU is watching just how these characters come together to oppose the great galactic threat. I’m less interested in Thanos and his Infinity Stone collection than I am in the playful bickering centered around Mjolnir’s worthy judgment of the team. That being said, we’ve all been waiting a long time for Thanos to prove himself formidable, and if Infinity War sputters on that front, the collective disappointing sigh of fandom will be heard beyond the reach of our galaxy.
What does Feige’s assertion that Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers 4 act as a culmination of everything the MCU has constructed actually look like? What do we want to have witnessed when Avengers 4‘s credits finally roll and we wait for its stinger to launch the next decade’s worth of Marvel stories? I’m sure you have an opinion. I sure do. Dammit, Rocket better trick Bucky outta his Vibranium arm to please his own sick humor. If we don’t get that, I riot.
Below are the 10 other plot threads I want to see addressed before all is said and done. I’m sticking to the characters I deem to be Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, so don’t expect much in regards to Hawkeye or Ant-Man’s climax. That opinion might change post Infinity War and Ant-Man and the Wasp, but for now they’re not the folks stoking my interest.
10. Thor vs. Loki – This sibling rivalry ignited the first great threat that brought the Avengers together. A Shakespearean squabble of two boys slugging it out for their father’s impossible attention. In the process, Thor shaved off some of his arrogance and found compassion for the simpletons of Earth. Loki simply plunged further into contempt. But Tom Hiddleston is a star, and we can’t get enough of this rascal.
When last we saw the brothers, they were together again, leading the Asgardian people to a new home in Norway. Cut to Thanos’s ship blocking their path and the Infinity War trailer revealing Loki’s Tesseract presentation to the Mad Titan. Is Loki a bad guy? A good guy? Marvel now has him poised promptly on their “First Ten Years” banner. It seems he’s more of an Avenger than Hawkeye at this point.
Infinity War needs to seal the deal on his moral compass. Is he redeemable after the Battle of New York? Is he mischievous or villainous? If he’s going to continue beyond the next 10 years, that question has to be answered.
9. Hulk Hearts Black Widow – In Age of Ultron, Natasha found kinship in Bruce’s battle with the monster within. The Hulk has as much red on his ledger as the Black Widow. I’ve never understood those that dismissed this romance. Here are two broken human beings that fell in love because of their fractures. In his pain, she saw her own.
Of course, Natasha had to betray Bruce’s trust to unleash the beast in their battle royale with Ultron. Bruce’s only response was to lose himself in The Hulk and flee to space. After Banner crashes back to Earth, Infinity War must address their relationship. Can he forgive her for that manipulation of the monster? Has she already found another strong, wounded bird to care for in Steve Rogers? I don’t see a happy ending here, but it’s the kind of internal conflict that keeps the Avengers relevant over other pretender superhero films.
8. The Global Spotlight on Wakanda – At the conclusion of Black Panther, T’Challa stated to the United Nations that they are finally willing to join the world’s stage. The consequences of such good intentions will probably not be addressed until the sequel, but the next two Avengers films will show a nation ready to fight for the one tribe of humanity. The trailers certainly reveal Wakanda to be a major battleground against Thanos’s army, and it amplifies the global threat beyond our narcissistic worries for the United States.
Is the Soul Stone in the Necropolis? Is it the source of the Vibranium’s power? Honestly, that speculation holds little interest. What I want to see from these next Marvel mega events is a T’Challa that has learned from those painful conversations he experienced in his own film. We need to see the King. We need to see his influence on Captain America and Iron Man. Entering Phase 4, Black Panther will be a major leader for the Avengers.
7. Nicky Fury and the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. – Where’s Nick been? We haven’t seen him since he dusted off that Helicarrier at the end of Age of Ultron. Does S.H.I.E.L.D. even matter in the wake of The Winter Soldier’s Hydra revelation? Marvel probably wants to keep that going, but as the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. television show gallops around the cosmos, the super secret agency seems to be less and less relevant to the cinematic adventures.
Nick Fury jumpstarted this whole thing in Iron Man, but he’s never really been given his due. Tony called him “the spy’s spy” and I’d like to see how that figure has been preparing for Thanos. Is he simply just the pied piper that brought this threat response team together, or is he truly the James Bond badass we were promised 10 years ago?
6. Is Thor Still Worthy? – At the start of Ragnarok, Hela crushed Mjolnir to teeny tiny bits, shattering Thor’s confidence before sending him into gladiatorial combat against The Hulk. He got his groove back before the film’s end, and he certainly seemed worthy of the title despite his father’s prop hammer. If you’ve glanced at leaked toy images (how dare you) then you might have some clue as to the answer of Thor’s worthiness, but is there still a king without a kingdom?
Thor will be entering Infinity War with a heavy burden. Either he’ll be leading the last stragglers of Asgard or Thanos will have completely wiped out his race. Whichever option turns out to be true, Thor will be bouncing back and forth between intense rage and profound doubt in himself. By the end of Ragnarok, the god that accepted the royal chair led his people from destruction into further destruction. Avengers 4 will need to reevaluate the god as a citizen/protector of Earth.
5. The Daughters of Thanos – Possibly the most exciting element of Infinity War will be finally getting to see the Guardians of the Galaxy standing next to the rest of the Avengers. Rocket meet Tony. Those two monsters of sarcasm will be good for several hours of bloopers.
However, the conflict I’m most looking forward to seeing come to a head is the one between Thanos and his two abandoned daughters: Gamora and Nebula. They were raised to be extensions of his tyranny, so Thanos should probably meet justice at their hands rather than Tony Stark’s repulser blasts. Coming out of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 as sisters, Gamora and Nebula look to be a major dramatic force against the big bad.
4. The Infinity Gauntlet – What’s the big deal? Since Thor: The Dark World, we’ve been hearing about how great and powerful these infinity stones are, but how much worse could it possibly get when they’re assembled in Thanos’s magic glove? The mind stone, the reality stone, the power stone, the space stone, the time stone, the soul stone. So what? We need to see their horror.
Planets will certainly be pulled from the sky, but we could also be seeing Thanos wield his might over time and space. The dead could be resurrected. Anyone screaming for the return of Quicksilver? It would absolutely shatter the Scarlet Witch and could splinter her abilities into a million different places. A brutalized Wanda could serve as a painful starting point for Phase 4. Could her comic book damnation of “No More Mutants” be adapted to “No More Avengers?” The Infinity Gauntlet needs to destroy our heroes in a way the’ve never experienced before. Otherwise, what’s the point?
3. Tony and Pepper Together Forever – What started out as the will they/won’t they flirtatious couple of the franchise has become its driving romance. When it looked like the MCU was phasing out Gwyneth Paltrow’s Pepper Potts I was deeply disappointed. Iron Man 3 was just starting to find a home for her character, and Tony without his heart is a dangerous cocktail with the potential for causing catastrophe. When Pepper made her cameo return in Spider-Man: Homecoming, I was delighted. Tony needs a reason to fight beyond his own ego.
2. The Man Out of Time Finds His Home – Since Steve Rogers was awoken from his 70-year slumber in the ice, he has been searching for a home in our time. He thought he had found it with S.H.I.E.L.D., but the clearcut good fight of World War II had transformed into a morally gray quagmire. The Winter Soldier showed Steve that blind allegiance was no longer possible. In Age of Ultron, he thought the Avengers would be his new platoon, but then Tony Stark had to go and screw that all up in Civil War.
Infinity War will be the ultimate test of faith for Captain America. We’ve been crying out for stakes in the Marvel Universe, and some wonder if it’s time for Rogers to make that sacrificial play he so admires. Will Bucky take up the mantel? Will Sam Wilson? But Rogers has already done that in The First Avenger. We know he’s got a death wish. Since the first film he’s been hunting for a life and he needs to find it.
Rogers may never pick up his shield again. His time as Captain America may be over. He will have to find his home elsewhere as a direct result of Phase 3’s climax, but I don’t think he’s going to die at the conclusion of Avengers 4. I think that task will fall on another hero (see below).
1. Tony Stark’s Terrifying Legacy – In the “Marvel Studios: The First Ten Years” special feature, KFeige refers to Tony Stark as “the heart of the MCU.” He has been there since the very beginning and he must be there for the conclusion. His death will serve as a chrysalis for the next phase in this never-ending franchise. Forget contractual agreements, he’s got to go for the story.
Tony Stark is a hero plagued with demons. Demons of his own making. In 2008, he learned that his terrifying brain was the genesis for a lot of the world’s misery. He attempted to redeem his past sins through his Iron Man prosthesis. He hoped to put a blanket on our fragile planet when he created an A.I. security system. More misery followed.
At the start of Age of Ultron, Stark got a glimpse of his legacy courtesy of the Scarlet Witch’s magical manipulation. He saw an Earth conquered, his friends dead at his feet. He saw himself helpless. This fear would drive him into further conflict with his team, and eventually shatter the allegiance the formed after The Battle of New York. Can Stark fix it? Is he the hero for the job? Avengers 4 should conclude with Tony Stark finally putting his demons to rest. He will serve as the inspiration for the next roster.
Let’s go ahead and get this out of the way: If you thought that the team-up of The Defenders would have any bearing on the individual character seasons of Marvel’s Netflix heroes, think again. As has been the pattern, each Defender is kept in their own sandbox until it’s time to play together, but then they are swiftly sequestered again. It can be a little disappointing, although when it comes to Jessica Jones, it’s actually a good thing. The only one of the Marvel heroes to share her first solo season (with Luke Cage), her connection to Cage was then abandoned during his origin season, and remained frosty during The Defenders. And while it’s sad in a way that this universe hasn’t sought to connect them further (yet), now Jessica (the excellent Krysten Ritter) is fully on her own. While there are a few cameos from Marvel side-characters here and there, for the most part, Jessica Jones Season 2 starts out as if The Defenders never happened. That’s just fine.
That is not to say, though, that Jessica Jones’ second season comes out of the gate as strong as it should, given how well we know the character and the major players in her life. The first episode (out of five sent for review) is clunky, both in its dialogue and its pacing (more on that in a minute). But what it does achieve is a new investigation for Jessica that keeps things personal. One of the great triumphs of the show’s first season was how we watched her deal — or not deal — with her PTSD from the abuses of Kilgrave (David Tennant), an evil she defeated in the finale. The show is certainly missing him as a driving force, but there’s still a lot for Jessica to process, going back to the death of her family as well as her abduction and torture during the illegal experiments that gave her powers. She’s a cool girl who doesn’t care, until she has to — and then she does, deeply.
Image via Netflix
The show also takes on a little bit of an X-Men vibe in Season 2. We meet another “super” (one with powers we haven’t seen on any of the shows yet, which is both weird and a relief) and then another, just as the population seems to be waking up to the fact that superheroes really do walk among us — which should have been obvious since New York City has been almost destroyed and then bombastically saved by superheroes over and over again. The denizens react as they always do in these stories, with mistrust for supers as “freaks,” and “one of them.” But if we ignore the Marvel movies and The Defenders to just stay within the context of Jessica Jones then it makes a little more sense. Kilgrave’s death made the news cycle because he had been terrorizing New York before Jessica killed him. She’s both a hero and a vigilante in that regard, and it’s that dichotomy that she struggles with in Season 2.
The season really starts to kick into gear, though, once we’re introduced to the central mystery: the truth behind IGH, the shadowy organization that performed the experiments on Jessica and others, and what its connection is to a string of recent deaths. Jessica is embroiled in several different battles, though, including against a cocky rival PI who wants to steal her clients, and in reconnecting with Jeri Hogarth (Carrie-Anne Moss) who needs a very personal favor. And maybe it is the influence of The Defenders, but Jessica is now more willing to receive assistance both from the gun-toting and increasingly off-balance Trish (Rachael Taylor) as well as the angelic PI-in-training Malcolm (Eka Darville). It helps give the show some space from just focusing on Jessica which, as outstanding as Ritter is, it needs in order to sustain its episode count and deepen the characters around her from just being plot props.
Image via Netflix
It wouldn’t be a review of a Marvel-Netflix collaboration, though, without mentioning pace. The show is still too slow, with a minimal or non-existent score, scenes that go on for too long, and a limited number of edits that add up to everything feeling like it’s happening in real time. It’s not as bad as any other Marvel series on Netflix in this regard — not even close — but it’s still a problem, and one that has unbelievably still not been addressed in terms of episode count (or shorter runtimes within episodes).
Still, there is a lot of good here, and the season gets better and better as it goes along. The introduction of a new Big Bad works, and is exceptionally creepy (there are many aspects of Season 2 that feel like it’s leaning into horror, which is a good choice). Jessica learns “it takes a monster to stop a monster,” right alongside her own fears that she herself is turning into a killer. But what this real monster shows her is that that is not her — it’s stronger, meaner, angrier, and it holds a mirror up to how Jessica views herself in that context. It’s part of the well-considered character work that the show is so good at, especially when it comes to Jessica confronting her past through a bottle, fists, or occasionally tears. As she gets close to her building’s new superintendent and his family, though, she starts to see an alternative to the life she’s living. Not one that she’s willing to let down her guard for yet, but it’s something (in terms of character growth).
More than anything, Alias Investigations once again provide a nice noir framework for the show’s central mystery this season, one that is interesting to unravel and certainly feels more grounded than anything we’ve seen in the past with villains like The Hand. The show is also wisely taking the time to give those around Jessica more to do, while keeping everyone connected. There’s certainly room for more humor (especially for someone besides Jessica to try and wield) and the episodes could be a lot tighter, but Jessica Jones once again puts character first over super-heroics. It makes all of the difference.
Rating: ★★★★
Jessica Jones Season 2 premieres Thursday, March 8th on Netflix.
