Four New METALS That COULD Be Added (In Theory)

It may have surprised you (sing.) that for over 10 years, a game called MINEcraft only contained two different metals: Iron and Gold. Iron was the generic catch-all metal used for ALL metal-containing recipes, and Gold was... just bling, really. 

Recent updates have FINALLY, after more than a DECADE, expanded on the metal roster. 1.16 surprised us all by adding a new mineral better than Diamond(!) known as Netherite. (Wait... is Netherite even a metal? That's debatable, but for the purposes of this rant I am going to say it is.) And in 1.17, the game FINALLY saw Copper be added after more than TEN years of requests. Just about every mod included Copper in a different form, making life for modpack makers much harder - so it was great to see Copper in Vanilla at last.

But could Minecraft see even more metals in future? Is there room for more metals in Minecraft when Copper has barely been able to carve out its niche (thus far)?

Well, yes. I do think there are several new metals we could see in Minecraft. Here are some of my suggestions for metals we could see:

Steel - Slightly Tougher Iron

I know we have the item called Flint and Steel, but currently that is only crafted with iron. They could make it so that by smelting an iron ingot again, it turns into a Steel ingot. The Steel ingot could be slightly darker in colour than the iron ingot, and is essentially a slightly better iron tool. 33% could be added to its base durability, giving the player 333 uses on a sword or pickaxe instead of 250. Steel tools could have a slightly higher enchantability, too.

As well as enhanced durability, Steel pickaxes would mine slightly faster than iron. Steel armour could come with 1 armour toughness point, which means stronger attacks "penetrate" less (diamond armour has 2 toughness points and Netherite has 3, but iron armour has none). Steel swords would maybe reach half a block further than other swords, but do the same damage.

Steel blocks would have a "plated" appearance and be 50% more blast-resistant and tougher to mine than regular iron blocks.

Cobalt - The Metal for Magnets

Magnets are one of the most heavily-requested features in Minecraft. A redstone tool that would work wonders for redstone contraptions and automatic farms, as well as really snazzy elevators, they could introduce a new metal for magnets known as Cobalt. Cobalt would have blue-tinged ingots. They could be used to craft magnetic items such as Magnets, Electromagnets (which are redstone-powered of course), and blocks of Cobalt could be very strongly attracted by magnets (iron blocks less so).

I've seen SO many suggestions for Magnets. I've also seen loads of other uses for the magnetic metal, including armour which when worn allows players to pick items up from further away. I've seen Cobalt Hoppers which pull items in when there's one block above them. Cobalt swords which are far-reaching in combat but doing less damage than, say, a Diamond Sword.

The possibilities with magnetic Cobalt are limitless!

Rose Gold - A New Tool Tier Between Iron/Steel and Diamond

Four problems that exist in Minecraft - gold is useless, copper is useless, the gap between iron and diamond is too big, you reach diamond way too soon - I aim to solve all of them with this one idea. And this one's a bit of a long shot.

In an effort to make both gold and copper useful to progression, I suggest that Rose Gold be an intermediate tier between Iron/Steel and Diamond. I KNOW that in real life, Rose Gold isn't very strong, but Minecraft has floating trees, Olympic archer skeletons, and a freaking dragon. With that out of the way, a Rose Gold ingot would be prepared by adding a gold ingot to a copper ingot (or vice versa) in a Smithing Table. (Hey, bonus problem addressed, Smithing Tables have little use!)

Rose Gold tools, armour and blocks could be crafted like other tiers. Simply put, Rose Gold is the tier inbetween Iron and Diamond. Its durability would be around 650 for swords and pickaxes, its speed and strength would be intermediate of iron and diamond (so 6.5 damage for swords), and a full set of armour would give the player 8.5 armour points. Rose Gold would NOT attract Piglins, however, as they would see it as "contaminated gold".

And yes, you would need a Rose Gold pickaxe to mine Diamond ore now. Iron would no longer cut it. This is truly an added step in the progression tier.

Uranium - The Ultimate Material

Hey, did you know that Uranium is actually a metal?? Well now you do! Uranium may seem like something you'd only find in a mod, and would have no place in Vanilla.

I previously talked/joked about adding Uranium in a section of a previous rant, "It Feels Modded!"

Here is an extract of that rant where I semi-jokingly proposed Uranium:

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).

A long shot for sure. A VERY long shot. But as I also pointed out...

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.

Basically, I stand by everything I said in that rant. Uranium COULD FIT IN VANILLA if it was implemented in such a way that didn't make it too powerful or too modern. Sure, a dickhead could level someone's build with Uranium-TNT, but it would probably take the dickhead a lot of time to obtain it if they balanced it right, and a lot of trolls out for a quick fix probably won't put in the time and effort to get to the level where they can obtain it. Plus, servers could always put plug-ins to prevent Uranium-TNT being used in someone else's build.

Final Word

Minecraft certainly does have room for more metals. The above suggestions almost certainly won't be coming to the game any time soon, or probably ever. But it's still fun to think about how Minecraft could expand on its rather puny list of metals.