Minecraft’s New Creaking Mob Underscores One of its Greatest Strengths

Posted by By our-little-miss-is-home December 14, 2024 3 Views 8 Min Read
Minecraft's New Creaking Mob Underscores One of its Greatest Strengths

In early December 2024, Mojang Studios released the latest Minecraft update in the form of The Garden Awakens for both Bedrock and Java Edition. Here, players worldwide on multiple platforms were finally able to explore the latest biome in the form of the Pale Garden and encounter its creepy inhabitants, the Creaking. While this tree-like mob is very distinctive compared to Minecraft’s other creatures, the 15-year-old blocky game has long been known for creating unique and interesting monsters beyond those commonly seen in fantasy concepts. The Creaking, with its connection to the creaking heart and ability to freeze at a player’s sight, is just the latest example of Mojang’s creature creativity.



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An Exploration Into Minecraft’s Diverse Bestiary

From Minecraft’s early days, its cubic landscapes have been filled with all kinds of wild and monstrous creatures. Players would encounter common animals by day, such as Cows, Pigs, and Chickens, but by night, hostile mobs would hunt players in the form of Skeletons, Zombies, and Spiders. While these mobs are not new to fantasy concepts, Skeletons and Zombies being similar to Norse draugr in particular, Minecraft’s mascot was an entirely new design that would shape how new mobs were created going forward: the Creeper. This rectangular, hissing, green monstrosity went on to haunt players’ dreams in fear that one day it may sneak up on them and explode, killing the player and possibly destroying structures and items.


Since then, Mojang has gone on to add dozens of new hostile and passive mobs to Minecraft, with many being based on real-world animals but several being original creations like the Creeper. This was first seen with the introduction of the underworld-like dimension, the Nether, which was inhabited only by Zombie Pigmen and Ghasts initially. From there, Mojang would create Endermen based on the creepypasta Slenderman, the slinky-like Slime and Magma Cubes, and the fireball-throwing Blazes. Not every new, original mob was hostile to the player, however, as Villagers, Snow Golems, and Iron Golems would remain primarily passive toward players unless attacked in the Iron Golem’s case.


Minecraft Creature’s Post-Microsoft Acquisition

In the decade since Mojang was acquired by Microsoft, a treasure trove of new, original mobs have been added, particularly through the now-defunct mob vote. While several mobs were designed for the mob votes, only a handful were officially added to Minecraft, including the Phantom, Glow Squid, Allay, Sniffer, and Armadillo. Other original mobs were added beyond the mob votes in expansive updates, such as the Bountiful Update introducing the water-temple dwelling Guardians, the Wild Update introducing the hulking Warden, and Tricky Trials introducing the cloud-like Breezes. Mojang further added new variations of older, original mobs, such as the Zombie Pigmen becoming Piglins and Villagers becoming Illagers and Ravagers.

The Creeper’s design
was initially made by accident when a glitched Pig had all four of its legs appear at the end of its body standing up.

Minecraft’s Future With New, Original Mobs


One of Minecraft‘s greatest strengths is how it’s able to continuously update, expand, and evolve over the years compared to games with stagnant features. Minecraft today is largely different from the relatively barren blocky landscape created in 2009 thanks to Mojang’s consistent updates and additions. While new biomes and gameplay mechanics can entice some players to come back to Minecraft, the allure of new mobs is a more appealing way to bring players back to the game to view and interact with the game’s newest mob. Based on this past success with additions such as Endermen and the Nether mobs, Mojang will likely continue to diversify its worlds with new, original mobs for years to come.

What these new mobs will be remains to be seen. Many fans hope that a new, third dimension will eventually be added to go alongside the End and Nether and feature a whole collection of new mobs. Some players suspect a central structure in ancient cities may eventually be used as a portal to a new dimension based on the Warden’s shadowy characteristics. Meanwhile, others desire to see more new mobs inhabit the End to go alongside the Endermen, Ender Dragon, Endermites, and Shulkers to compete against the Nether and overworld’s varied populaces. If the Creaking is anything, it’s a sign that Mojang’s creativity in creature design for Minecraft is still fresh and will continue to intrigue players with new mobs in the future.


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