The Best And Worst Parts Of Minecraft’s Drops

A notable change to the usual Minecraft update process, the Drop is a smaller update than the typical major releases that come out during the summer months, and they’re occasionally announced during Minecraft Live events. While this addition has caused immense confusion with the terminology used for any kind of update or preview of upcoming content, Drops are a promising change to the previous formula.

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As an overview, a Drop is a much smaller content update and tends to be released within two-to-three months after it’s first revealed, while Major Updates tend to be released after several months of ongoing player testing and with larger content additions or changes. Additionally, Snapshots are releases for Minecraft Java Edition that allow players to try out upcoming content for either Drops or Major Updates. Previews and betas are the same term but only for the Bedrock Edition. While only a few Drops have affected the game so far, there are five major aspects to these smaller game updates, with a clear mix of positives and negatives.

5

Better Focus

Adding And Updating Specific Content

A major benefit to the Drop updates is how focused on general ideas they are. While this could be disappointing for some fans hoping for quantity over quality, the clear development of certain themes often adds features that wouldn’t make sense for larger updates.

Since Major Updates tend to have a broader scope but are far more strict in adhering to a theme, the Drops allow for tiny details to better shine through. First seen with the tremendously limited Bats and Pots Drop, though labeled as such retroactively, this Drop further tested the waters for some of the oldest mobs to receive overhauls, seen most recently with farm animals.

4

Smaller Scope

Limited Additions And Changes

On the flip side, Drops will not stray much outside of the general idea they encompass. This is seen most literally with the Bats and Pots Drop, but all the other Drops are just as strict.

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In general, the content added by Drops usually comprises one to two concepts. Updated bats with new pot blocks, armadillos bringing wolf armor alongside new wolf variants, bundles with hardcore mode loosely tied with alliteration from “Bravery,” and the addition of the pale garden biome. The size of these updates does leave something to be desired, although the turnaround time from announcement to release mostly makes up for it.

3

Faster Release Cycles

Quick Turn-Around

Easily the biggest positive point to this style of Minecraft update is the surprisingly small window from the initial announcement or random reveal of a Drop to the official release. It is incredibly short compared to Major Updates. Instead of roughly eight months of public development time, Drops can join the main game in as little as two months.

Thanks to the extremely targeted content additions found in Drops, the process for getting the updates into Minecraft and outside of Snapshots or Previews can be incredibly quick. As the Drops add more detail to worlds instead of fully changing them, the process of including a single new biome or new mob is expedited.

2

Handling The Backlog

Improving The Update Format

The most enticing aspect of the Drop format is how it seems to be the answer to the ever-growing backlog of promised content to finally be added to the game, instead of waiting for a way to shoehorn these smaller ideas into a relatively unrelated Major Update. Given how most of this content comes in the form of Community Vote losers, the ability to quickly add in fairly fleshed-out ideas is perfect for Drops.

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With current missing favorites including various biome refreshes, a Crab mob, and the beloved Moobloom, the Spring 2025 Drop already presents a format that would easily allow for the various vote losers to return. Since the fabled, and at one point eliminated, Firefly was added to the game in some capacity, anything is possible for the Drop format to include.

1

Failing To Listen To Player Feedback

Missing The Point Of The Drops

The biggest issue with the Drop format is how it often lives up to its name, where by the time the Drop is complete, everything added feels like it was prepared entirely ahead of time, with or without any player interaction. Even with the smaller scope of Drops, the general lack of clear player feedback regarding content additions is unfortunate.

Most clearly seen with The Garden Awakens update, player suggestions for new features for Drops seemingly aren’t taken into consideration. Not every popular suggestion can or should end up in Minecraft, but when a feature makes sense, ties into Minecraft, and has a large community backing, as seen with the White Pumpkin concept for the Pale Garden biome, it seems that the update doesn’t quite live up to hopes or expectations. In the future, White Pumpkins could certainly enter Minecraft when the Pale Garden receives a future refresh or second-pass update, but this only adds to the ongoing backlog issue, along with begging the question of why it wasn’t considered during the first period of player feedback with what should be a player-forward update format.

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Released

November 18, 2011

ESRB

E10+ For Everyone 10+ Due To Fantasy Violence