Minecraft co-creator reveals his pick for the game’s most important update

Dexerto sat down with Minecraft co-creator Jens “Jeb” Bergensten, who told us his pick for the game’s most important update in its rich 15-year history.

Minecraft has come a very long way since its inception with its first version being released all the way back in 2009. Since then, the indie sweetheart has become a household name all around the world.

Within those 15 years, a lot has changed about the blocky sandbox survival game, including new blocks, crafting recipes, mobs, and even an entire Ender Dragon. These updates have consistently added more and more content to the game, expanding its capabilities with each new release.

No one has overseen these updates more directly than co-creator Jeb, who we had the delight of speaking to and learning more about what they believed was the most important patch to date.

Jeb had a few honorable mentions for his top pick, one of which was as humble as the ever-useful charcoal.

“Before we had charcoal, you had to find normal coal in the mountains, which meant that in order to even get anywhere in the game, the first thing you needed to find was coal. Which at times could be quite hard, so we introduced torches as an alternative because you need to make torches,” Jeb explained.

“It seems like such a little thing, but that definitely changed how the game was played when you start a new world. But that was back in 2011, so people don’t think much about it now, it’s just the way it’s always been.”

With a game as diverse as Minecraft, it was hard for Jeb to choose just one item or update that was significant to the evergrowing title because the game caters to so many different audiences. The co-creator had to give a shoutout to the Redstone Repeater and Comparator, for enabling such marvelous creations from players.

Jeb couldn’t go over important updates without mentioning the End update, however, an update that brought the Elytra. This new equipment lets you soar great distances, providing you have some propellant.

Players eventually discovered a bug that would propel them forward if they hit themselves with an arrow, and thus a new feature was born.

“We have a philosophy that bugs are not features. If a bug creates fun gameplay, we need to figure out how to implement it as a feature. So that’s why we have the fireworks now, so that it does a similar thing, but it’s something that the player is more in control of and not just a side effect of two systems colliding.”