The Minecraft Team at Microsoft has ended development of the previously promised Super Duper graphics pack. The team said that the visuals made the game too taxing.
Microsoft first announced the Super Duper pack alongside the Xbox One X reveal in 2017. The company intended to upgrade the textures and lighting to look better on 4K displays. Two years later, however, Super Duper never arrived. The Minecraft Team has instead worked on other updates for the block-building phenomenon.Recommended videosPowered by AnyClipDefining Moments in Gaming (National Video Game Day)
“Super Duper was an ambitious initiative that brought a new look to Minecraft but, unfortunately, the pack proved too technically demanding to implement as planned,” reads the Minecraft blog.
One of the problems that likely occurred is that Minecraft is now one continuous experience across devices. It is on the same version on Windows 10, smartphones, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch. And all of those devices get updates at the same time. More important, they all get content from the community-powered Marketplace, so it’s important that the game looks and runs the same on everything.
“We realize this is disappointing to some of you – there was a lot of enthusiasm for Super Duper from inside and outside the studio – but unfortunately, we aren’t happy with how the pack performed across devices,” reads the Minecraft blog. “For this reason, we’re stopping development on the pack, and looking into other ways for you to experience Minecraft with a new look.”
But if any game from the last decade has proven that cutting-edge graphics aren’t crucial, it’s Minecraft.
And if you absolutely must have the most cutting edge visuals in your Minecraft, play the Java version and get some mods.
You can make it look astonishing with 4K textures and even real-time ray tracing.
Microsoft’s long-delayed upgrade to drag Minecraft’s iconic blocky look into the modern age has been scrapped all together.
On Monday, Minecraft developer Mojang announced that the Super Duper Graphics Pack teased at E3 2017 “proved too technically demanding to implement as planned.” The Super Duper Graphics Pack was supposed to introduce “excessive visual razzmatazz” to the cross-platform version of the game, including 4K resolution support, HDR visuals, dynamic shadows, directional lighting, edge highlighting, improved water effects, and more.
“We aren’t happy with how the pack performed across devices,” Mojang’s announcement says. “For this reason, we’re stopping development on the pack, and looking into other ways for you to experience Minecraft with a new look.”
That last line still gives hope for a future where Minecraft’s blocks look slightly shinier. Of course, PC gamers with the O.G. Java Edition of Minecraft and a hunger for eye candy don’t need to wait for Mojang to figure out how to optimize performance on phones and consoles with ancient CPUs, thanks to the power of mods. If you want to give modding a shot, check out PCGamesN’s list of glorious visual overhauls, while PC Gamer maintains a killer roundup of Minecraft mods that extend beyond mere graphical tweaks if you want to really get wild.
James Charles is returning to Minecraft Monday after taking last week off.
The event hosted by UMG and Keemstar continues for Monday, August 12th with its eighth week of the tournament. For this week, the competitors will compete in Hunger Games (Spark City), TnT Run, Hunger Games (Breezy), Hunger Games (Par72), KitPVP, Hunger Games (Holiday), Hunger Games (Wyvern), Bingo, and Hunger Games (Spark Apokalypse).
Minecraft Monday has switched between all Hunger Games contests and several other mini games. For this week it looks like it will mostly be Hunger Games (Battle Royale) events.
ShotGunPlays & Technoblade won Week 1, Technoblade & iBallisticSquid won Week 2, traves & cscoop won Week 3, Vikkstar123 & Preston won Week 4, Skeppy & BadBoyHalo won Week 5, Technoblade & Schlatt won in Week 6 and Badboyhalo & Skeppy won in Week 7.
When does Minecraft Monday start?
Date: August 12th
Time: 4 p.m. EST, 1 p.m. PT
How to stream Minecraft Monday Week 8
UMG will be streaming the event live above.
You can also watch live from individual streamers on their respective platforms (some stream on Twitch, others stream on YouTube, a rare few choose other outlets).
Minecraft Monday Week 8 teams, rosters
Minecraft Monday Week 8 results
The leaderboard above will update throughout the tournament, and you can check at the end of the event who won.
A panel on Minecraft at E3, a video game trade show in Las Vegas in June 2019
Microsoft has halted development of an ambitious update to Minecraft, throwing in the towel after concluding it was technically too complicated, according to a blog post by the team responsible for the hit adventure and construction game.
Microsoft had unveiled the project, dubbed “Super Duper Graphics Packs,” to great fanfare in 2017, at E3, the world’s biggest video game trade show.
“Unfortunately, the pack proved too technically demanding to implement as planned,” the blog post said.
“We realize this is disappointing to some of you -– there was a lot of enthusiasm for Super Duper from inside and outside the studio –- but unfortunately, we aren’t happy with how the pack performed across devices,” it said.
“For this reason, we’re stopping development on the pack, and looking into other ways for you to experience Minecraft with a new look,”it added.
Minecraft—with its signature pixilated characters and accessories—enables players to build entire universes either alone or with other players online. Inspired by Lego and its plastic bricks, this digital versionis immensely popular with a young public.
In May, Minecraft said 176 million versions of the game have been sold since its launch 10 years ago. In October 2018, Business Insider said the game was attracting 91 million players a month.
After announcing a plan to completely overhaul Minecraft‘s visual engine in 2017, the game’s developers at Mojang have finally come clean: the “Super Duper Graphics Pack” is no longer coming to the hugely popular sandbox game.
The update’s E3 2017 announcement sent tongues wagging thanks to an incredible trailer, which bathed the game’s familiar, blocky environs with a newly dynamic shadow-and-light model, crepuscular rays, screen-space reflections, material-based lighting, and more. Keeping in line with its description as a “pack,” the update left the game’s raw assets untouched, which made it seem similar to other existing “texture packs” sold within modern Minecraft games. All of this would even run in 4K resolution on supported hardware, Mojang said, and it promised a free launch by “fall 2017.”
Once that date slipped, Mojang became wholly mum about the pack’s existence until Monday. That’s when Mojang confirmed the project’s cancellation in a brief, official blog post. In it, the company told fans, “Unfortunately, the pack proved too technically demanding to implement as planned.” Instead of offering technical details, Mojang went on to blame the update’s problems on “how the pack performed across devices.”
Thanks to this brief statement, we’re forced to read between the lines and remember that the Super Duper Graphics Pack was originally announced as a free update for Minecraft on Windows 10 and Xbox as opposed to power-starved platforms such as Nintendo Switch or smartphones. And we learned in December 2018 that Microsoft was officially done supporting the game on Xbox 360 consoles. This may very well have been a crucial brick to lay in moving forward on “Xbox One-only” console support for the pack.
So that “across devices” line may very well point to the non-X version of Xbox One as a performance sticking point. But neither Mojang nor Microsoft is saying.
Shortly after the pack’s 2017 announcement, Microsoft rolled out a Minecraft “beta test” channel via the Xbox One Insider channel. But that test version of the game never included any hints of Super Duper Graphics Pack bonuses or even a jump to 4K resolution. However, that doesn’t mean Microsoft is done pushing Minecraft‘s limits on its existing platforms. The Monday blog post included a tease of some technical upgrade possibly coming: “We’re constantly trying to make the most of the technical architecture of each [platform]. We’ll be able to share more on that subject very soon.”
And in good news, some of the Super Duper update’s graphical touches appear to have found a home in the promising spin-off game Minecraft Dungeons, slated to launch sometime next year.
Minecraft fans have been expecting a major update to the game since 2017. But the update has proved “too technically demanding,” Microsoft said Monday, leading the company to cancel production.
The update, called Super Duper Graphics Pack, was expected to bring more with lighting effects like shadows and fog, new motion for some game elements like leaves, and new textures for characters. Microsoft unveiled the “ambitious” update at the massive E3 video game conference in 2017, but on Monday conceded that the update “proved too technically demanding to implement as planned.”
“We aren’t happy with how the pack performed across devices,” developer Mojang said in a company blog post. “For this reason, we’re stopping development on the pack, and looking into other ways for you to experience Minecraft with a new look.”
Minecraft has come a long way since its introduction a decade ago. It remains one of the top paid mobile games in Apple’sApp Store and the Google Play Store, while Minecraft: Education Edition has become a popular way to teach kids things like computer coding, engineering, architecture, urban planning and math.
It’s also been used to help kids with autism engage in school and build healthy social lives.
