For most of Minecraft’s history, its many blocky biomes and landscapes remained relatively silent save for background music composed by Daniel “C418” Rosenfeld and noises emanating from animals and hostile mobs. While the breaking and placing of blocks as well as music blocks and jukeboxes could add more artificial sounding noise to Minecraft games, those sounds only appear briefly in the game unless players make complex redstone music contraptions. To rectify this sound issue, Mojang has added new ambient sounds to the badlands and desert biomes. While these sounds are a welcome addition to Minecraft’s more arid environments, Mojang should strive to add more ambient sounds for the rest of the game’s biomes.
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Minecraft’s New Badlands and Desert Ambient Sounds Explained
When players previously ventured into the sandy badlands or desert biomes, the only sound they would have heard was their footprints stepping against the sand, Rabbits running around, Husks limping about, or Villagers going about their business if players encountered a sandstone village. However, players who venture into these arid environments now will hear a slight wind moving sand against these biomes’ many dunes and rocky formations. These new sounds aren’t actually connected to the badlands and desert biomes themselves but are rather tied to terracotta, red sand, and regular sand blocks. If players place any of these blocks and surround them with at least three more blocks of terracotta, red sand, and regular sand in any biome, the windy sand ambient noise will appear.
These aren’t the only changes made to the badlands and desert biomes, however. Cacti will now grow a pink flower on top of them similar to the large flowers seen on echinocereus cacti found in the United States. Cactus flowers will randomly grow on cactus blocks, but as soon as a flower blooms, it will prevent the cactus from growing any taller. Additionally, two new types of grasses can be found in these arid areas: the short dry grass and the tall dry grass. These new grasses can be placed on dirt blocks despite spawning on sand, but they won’t drop wheat seeds like regular grass blocks. Further, camels will now spawn randomly in deserts instead of only within desert villages.
Potential New Ambient Sounds in Minecraft
Since the new ambient sounds will make traveling in the badlands and deserts more immersive, Mojang should consider adding more ambient sounds for other biomes. Mojang could utilize Minecraft’s worldwide popularity to travel to real world locations to record some of these new ambient sounds and introduce them in their parallel biomes. For example, new ambient sounds in a birch forest could include sounds of wind pushing against the top of trees against other trees and sounds of birch trees’ flaky bark falling off. In taiga biomes filled with pine and spruce-like trees and snow, Mojang could include sounds of needles and pine cones falling to the ground as well as snow occasionally falling off the tops of trees, even though players will never actually see such an occurrence.
For the rainforest-like jungle biome, Mojang could include sounds of rain or dew drops occasionally falling to the ground or other small bodies of water, as well as the sound of parrots squawking and flying from branch to branch. With the savanna biome resembling some of Africa and South America’s hot grasslands, Mojang could include sounds of dry dirt being pushed by wind as well as sounds of cicadas and katydids’ famous choral noises that occur on hot days. While some ambient sounds have been added to Minecraft’s swamps with the addition of the firefly bush, Mojang could still add some more pieces of audio to this muddy environment to increase immersion, such as bubbles popping from the warm water or dragonflies and other water-based insects buzzing around.
New Ambient Sounds For Minecraft’s Tundras and Caves
Not every new ambient sound introduced in Minecraft has to be restricted to biomes with trees, however. For ice plains and spike biomes, Mojang could record sounds of wind moving snow and ice particles in the air as well as distant sounds of glacial ice cracking and bending to make these cold environments more dynamic. It could also include sounds of snow chucks moving or distant avalanches falling despite avalanches not actually appearing in the game. In underground caves, Mojang could include distant sounds of rocks falling and breaking and water drops falling from dripstones. All of these ambient sound additions could make Minecraft’s varied landscapes appear more realistic and help immerse players in their blocky worlds.
There are currently 65 biomes that can be discovered and interacted with across Minecraft’s Overworld, Nether, and End dimensions.
- Released
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November 18, 2011
- ESRB
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E10+ For Everyone 10+ Due To Fantasy Violence