One MASSIVE update a year, or four smaller updates?

Since 1.0, almost every update has had a very similar development cycle. The update cycle starts with the first weekly snapshots, many of which are new-feature-heavy. Then in the later snapshots, they become primarily focused on bug-fixes and tweaks, before we move into the pre-releases. After the pre-releases comes the actual release of the update. After that, there is a break from snapshots, and some additional patches on the update are released, mainly to fix bugs and very occasionally add some additional new features that didn't make it into the first release. After a bit of a hiatus, we then start getting snapshots for the next update and the cycle starts over again.

All that has changed since 2011 is the time these updates have taken. In the beginning, up until 1.7, we had a major release every 2-5 months. The updates lacked any sort of themes until 1.4. In 2012 and 2013, we saw four and three major releases respectively. But after 2013, something strange happened. The update cycles became very... slow. No longer were we seeing updates every few months. Rather jarringly, 1.8 took nearly three months for us to see a single snapshot. Then snapshots kept going on hiatus, and when we did see snapshots they often had next to no new features. The 1.8 development cycle was slow. This led a lot of people to attack Mojang for being "lazy", especially as they kept half-implementing random features like Endermites. Ultimately, the update would take almost a YEAR to release. At the time, 1.8 felt like a blip. But we had something much worse coming.

1.9 took almost a YEAR just to get the FIRST SNAPSHOT!!! The pace of updates made a snail look like a cheetah! Even so, little did we know that, with the exception of 2016, one update a year would become the new normal.

But these single updates per year were MASSIVE. FAR bigger in scale and scope than pre-1.8 updates could even dream of. We were getting just as much, if not MORE content in a year than we were before when we were having several smaller updates a year.

Why Go For One Annual Mahoosive Update?

Nowadays, an update is a HUGE deal. Whereas early updates were adding jungles and iron golems and things, nowadays an update means COMPLETELY changing an area of the game. The 1.17 update may just be the most ambitious update yet, completely changing caves, the way biomes work, increasing the world height and underground depth, writing a new cave carver system from the ground up, as well as adding many new features tied to these new caves. 1.16 was absolutely HUGE as well, adding MANY new biomes to the Nether, a mineral better than diamond (holy cow!), a new mob that trades and perhaps the most complex dungeon-type structure the game has ever seen! These updates are AMBITIOUS. 1.13, 1.14, 1.16 and 1.17 have all been total and utter game-changers, each update evolving the game in huge and exciting ways. Having one update a year allows the developers more time to focus on much bigger and better updates with much higher scopes than any pre-1.8 update ever could've done. These early updates typically focused on smaller features such as redstone or horses, as opposed to total and complete paradigm shifts we're seeing now (for better or for worse).

It also has to be said that these big epic flashy updates are a lot more marketable for Mojang and Microsoft. The BIG Nether update with tonnes and tonnes of new Nether features lend their way to lots of cinematic trailers and hype, as well as an annual "big reveal" event at the annual MineCon. The latter will DEFINITELY get people to tune into the MineCon live streams!

These larger updates allow Mojang to produce bigger and better updates with a far greater scope than ever before, which can help the game evolve. The oceans, villages, the Nether and caves were all very outdated and in desperate need of a LOT of love, and having a one-year update to focus on each of these has given Mojang time to give these areas of the game the love they deserve. A Nether update that took four months almost certainly wouldn't have given us as many new biomes or as much amazeballs-ness to the Bastions. As well as a lot less time for balancing and optimising. It would've felt incredibly half-baked. "Half-bakedness" was actually one of the biggest complaints of early updates that I saw on the Minecraft forums. They often felt rushed or unfinished. The bigger updates seems to have almost eliminated this complaint, as they have felt a lot more polished.

Finally, these less frequent releases are beneficial for modders and servers, who have to potentially mess up their products by updating, less frequently.

But Whilst Mojang Spent One Year on X Update, I Was Holding Out for Y!

The annual updates may give each update a lot more scope, but there definitely are problems that come with doing the updates this way. I discussed in a previous rant, "Are Themed Updates Holding Minecraft Back?", how an update can overstay its welcome. Particularly if you are holding out for a particular area of the game to get updated. At MineCon 2018's live event, I was really hoping to see a Nether or a Cave update, but when they announced the Village and Pillage theme, my knee-jerk reaction was crushing disappointment and writing off the 1.14 update. But the frustration arose from the fact this meant these 2 areas of the game wouldn't receive an update for a very long time, and it would be at least a year before the Nether saw the love it deserved.

A year is a long time. The last year has taught us this.

The fact we would have to wait so long meant certain themes that people wanted to see ended up taking many years to actually materialise. This was shown the most in 2019, when everyone was wanting to see a cave update, but instead we were stuck with bees for months and months. It was very frustrating. And although I personally was very happy in MineCon 2019's event when they announced the Nether Update, a lot of people were frustrated that the cave update would be at least another year off. And people waiting on an End or a Sky or a Farming update will have to wait a few MORE years. Will an update ever feel worth the wait if you've been waiting literally half a decade for it?

Harking back to the infamous bee update, when updates were released every 4 months, you knew that if you don't like the theme of that update, it wouldn't stick around for too long. If you weren't keen on redstone, you knew it wasn't going to be that long before the next update. I mentioned earlier that 2016 was an exception to the post-2013 era. After the release of 1.9 in early 2016, the next two updates actually did release on a 3-5 month schedule again, and I must say it was incredibly refreshing. 1.10 came and went very quickly and we were onto 1.11.

Finally, with these long, drawn-out update cycles, there are LONG hiatuses in new content after an update is released. Following the release of an update, we can have many MONTHS of radio silence about what the theme of the next update will be, or ANY of its features. Especially in recent years as they have gone for "big MineCon reveals", where they don't reveal ANYTHING about the update until the annual MineCon event. However, it is always fun to speculate and see others' speculations, so this isn't entirely a bad thing. But it may lead to certain individuals losing interest due to months of no new content. When the update cycle was more concise, there were typically just three or four missed snapshot weeks following a release.

So... one MASSIVE update a year, or four smaller updates?

Both styles definitely have their advantages and disadvantages, but I will have to say that actually the one massive update a year IS better for that update, definitely. A lot of quicker updates often felt half-finished or half-baked, but with the big annual update having a lot more time put into it, they feel far more polished, owing to the weeks or months of additional optimisation and development that go into it. That being said, it would be nice to occasionally see a smaller, quicker update, as some updates really did overstay their welcome. In the last 4 years, the World of Colour Update and the Buzzy Friggin' Bees Update definitely come to mind. I'd also love to see another neglected area get a year of love for 1.18, but I also wouldn't complain if it's a small update that only takes 3 months.