"It Feels Modded!"

One of the most common complaints I see when some more "out-there" features are added or announced is that the feature "doesn't feel vanilla". It feels like it belongs in a mod. It feels un-Minecraft-y. It doesn't feel like it fits or gels with the rest of the game, and sticks out in some way.

In this rant I am going to discuss the notion that certain features can feel "modded", why people think this, and why it's not always a bad thing for a feature to feel a bit out there.

Why do Certain Features Feel Modded When First Added?

One of the first features to attract this criticism was the horse, added back in 2013. Now, the horse is a special and highly unique case in that horses actually WERE taken from a mod. The Mo' Creatures mod. It's perhaps the only time in the game's entire history a feature has been taken directly from a community-made mod, and likely the only time this will ever happen. 

Before horses, almost all mobs had one skin. There was one pig. One chicken. One cow. One zombie. One skeleton. One creeper. The sole exception was the sheep, which came in several different colours, but all the same pattern. Then came the horse, which had 35 different possible skins! Specifically, 7 different colours with 5 different patterns. That was a LOT. FAR more than anything we'd ever seen at the time. The model was also slightly more detailed than any other mob in its time. Add to that, the horse also had complex attributes, such as varying amounts of health, speed and jump height. Totally unseen in every other mob before this point, which had fixed attributes.

The fact the horse was so complex for its time made the fact it was taken from a mod really SHOW. Of course, nowadays, there are several mobs with even more complexity. Tropical Fish can have 2700 different skins, for example, and Pandas have several different personalities and even a genetics system. In a way, the horse was very much ahead of its time. It paved the way for more complex mobs. So while it totally stuck out and seemed very "un-Minecraft" at the time due to its huge complexity compared to other mobs, they do not seem so insanely complex now.

More "out there" features such as horses can feel very out-of-place at first, but over time the playerbase gets used to the feature, and it's like it's always been a part of the game. Horses nowadays are such an established feature that have been in the game for 8 years - can you really imagine Minecraft without seeing herds of horses in your fields? Does the fact they have lots of skins and flexible attributes even cross your mind anymore?

Other features that got complaints of feeling modded included features such as Ocean Monuments, Evokers, Glazed Terracotta, Polar Bears, Bees, Netherite, and even the Pointed Dripstone. Archaeology, which we have yet to see, was perhaps the ultimate "feels modded" feature, when it was announced. All of these features drew these "feeling modded" complaints, because all of them featured attributes never seen in Minecraft before. 

An underwater enemy that fires lasers out of its eyes was so unlike anything seen before in Minecraft, where the only aquatic mob was the squid, and lasers in Minecraft... come on. Certain blocks like Glazed Terracotta and Pointed Dripstone had far more detailed textures than almost all other blocks, making them feel like they didn't fit at first. Some still argue these highly-textured blocks do not fit. Animals such as Polar Bears and Bees felt out-of-place because large carnivores and insects are not mobs we've typically seen in the game to date. As for Netherite, it suddenly changed one of the most established systems in Minecraft: the tier progression system, which had gone totally unchanged for over a decade. And Archaeology is SO unlike anything we've ever seen before in Minecraft.

All these features have one thing in common: they pushed the envelope. They were totally unseen for their time, thus felt "un-Minecrafty" and unfitting. But eventually, as we got used to these features, we never thought twice about them feeling like they don't fit.

Some things are TRULY out of place for Minecraft, such as modern technology, cars, guns, alcohol or COVID-19 infections. Some things fit right in, such as Copper or Blackstone, new village types or fish mobs. But then there are those features that toe the line and push the boundaries of what's been done before and what feels like Minecraft.

It's Good to Push the Envelope

If Mojang never took risks once in a while, the game would grow stale. These more bold and out-there changes are what has made the game grow and evolve over time. If Mojang predictably added common docile mammals in every update, as opposed to the more exotic axolotl, the game would never feel like it was moving forward. Some features, especially in the last two updates, have REALLY shaken the status quo. Adding a mineral better than diamond for the first time in 11 years, or increasing the world height which has been established for over 10 years. These are the changes that evolve Minecraft and pave the way for bigger and better features.

Every now and then, Mojang do come out and surprise us with a change or addition nobody was ever expecting. And while there may be some criticism for it feeling un-Minecraft or like it doesn't fit in vanilla, these changes will be what keep people interested. Assuming the change doesn't make the game actively WORSE, that is. I don't see how archaeology can actually make Minecraft a worse game. Yes, it's out there. But that's because it's an entirely new system. Full of possibility to expand the game in a direction we never even considered was possible. Things totally unseen in Minecraft ultimately grow the game into a bigger and better product.

A Hypothetical Example

Imagine, after 1.18 is done and we're ready for our next update, they suddenly announce that in 1.19 they're adding Uranium.

Yes. Uranium.

What?!

Uranium!?! Are you kidding!?!?!? Are we trying to turn Minecraft into Tekkit here??? There is absolutely no way Uranium could EVER fit in Vanilla.... right? Come on, that's ridiculous. No way are they adding nuclear powerplants to Minecraft, that just does not fit at ALL.

Well, actually, I can think of some pretty vanilla Minecraft-y ways they could add this very out-there concept without going overboard and adding nuclear power stations. Uranium could be made into the ultimate fuel source - the uranium rod smelting 1500 items per rod. It could be crafted into blocks that damage anyone or anything who gets too close. It's powerful, but extraordinarily rare in your Minecraft world, found only in the deepest depths and exposed to lava making it very hard to get. But its main use would be an "ultimate mining tool" that is extremely end-game. Uranium-TNT's extremely powerful explosion, which could very easily kill you even with blast protection if you're not careful, blows up all the rock, but leaves 70% of the ores within the blast radius (the other 30% are destroyed). 

No, that's ridiculous. That's way too destructive and totally un-Minecraft. MODDED!!!

Two years later, you're deep underground, blast-mining for diamonds with Uranium-TNT to maximise your ore uptake per mining session, and you can't imagine ever NOT being able to progress from strip-mining to blast-mining once you obtained this very rare and powerful mineral.

Still not convinced? Imagine I had suggested a freaking huge pyramid underwater made of turquoise blocks that change colour, populated with spiky fish things and a mini-boss variant. The spiky fish things shoot lasers out of their eyes as their mode of attack, and the mini-boss comes with a jumpscare that disables your ability to mine through walls. Sounds like something right out of the Aether mod if you ask me. Except it's been in the game for 7 years. Uranium has never even been mentioned by Mojang.

Final Word

As humans, we don't like change, especially change that has been established for years in our favourite game. I can totally see why some changes would stick out, and I can totally get why some people choose to stay in old versions because they don't like the updates. But I personally do not think change is a bad thing, and more experimental features are necessary (in moderation!) to prevent the game growing too old or stale. Change and envelope-pushing features can serve to revitalise the game, so long as they don't go overboard and start adding features that truly could never fit.