Many Minecraft fans want an End update, and it’s easy to see why: the dimension has remained practically unchanged since 2016. However, while the realm definitely deserves more time in the spotlight, Minecraft‘s End already serves its purpose perfectly.
An End update is something fans have been envisioning for almost a decade, but the idea really ramped up when the Nether got an overhaul in 2020. The Nether Update completely revamped the dimension, adding diverse flora and fauna in addition to a smorgasbord of new resources. The Nether will also be getting more flowers in the update that includes Minecraft‘s Happy Ghast mob, which is set to fully release this summer.
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A Minecraft End Update Could Be More Trouble Than Its Worth
It’s reasonable for fans to be disappointed that projects like A Minecraft Movie aren’t featuring the End dimension, and it is true that much of the game’s spin-off media focuses on the Overworld and the Nether. Moreover, the dimension has gone without a major update for almost 10 years, contributing to fans wanting to see the End receive some sort of overhaul. However, giving the End its own rich biodiversity would threaten to erode its identity. Furthermore, making the End a place players want to hang out in could ruin the clever way the dimension plays into the game’s underlying narrative.
The End Is Minecraft’s Loneliness Manifested
Playing single-player Minecraft, especially in the game’s earliest days, can be a lonely experience. The world is so vast, and its creatures are so obtuse, that a sense of creeping isolation can set in, something that can make players feel as if they’re not alone. That feeling is where Minecraft‘s Herobrine came from, and it is also responsible for other similar urban legends. Even in today’s more crowded Minecraft, a feeling of loneliness shines through at times—like during a solo adventure when C418’s music is hitting just right—giving players a sense of utter immersion within an impossibly large virtual world.
Minecraft‘s End dimension is lonely to a degree beyond anywhere else in the game. Small islands of yellow drift in an endless sea of purple static. The only residents, other than the mysterious Shulkers and an Ender Dragon that floats in aimless circles, are the Endermen who are neutral towards the player unless looked in the eye or attacked, an indifference that is almost worse than outright hostility in its coldness. C418’s ‘The End’ theme is especially oppressive, mirroring the static skies with its blaring instrumentals. To give the End a more well-realized ecology would go against this lonely atmosphere and take more away from the dimension than it would give.
Minecraft’s End Poem Highlights The Dimension’s True Purpose
This loneliness serves a narrative end in addition to its thematic purposes. The End has always been a bit strange, considering that Minecraft is a sandbox game with no definitive endpoint. However, the dimension’s oppressive atmosphere serves this contradiction, as is highlighted by Julian Gough’s End Poem. It describes the transition of leaving the End, saying “the player woke up from the dream. And the player began a new dream. And the player dreamed again, dreamed better.” Both dimensions are referred to as dreams, as is the player’s experience in the real world (referred to as the “long dream of life”).
This motif of dreams and literally ‘waking up’ from the End dimension is signified in-game, as leaving the dimension will return the player to their last spawn point (typically a bed), rather than back to the portal that was used to enter the End (which is what happens with the Nether). The poem congratulates the player on their task of besting the End (“I like this player”), but it also frees them of any obligation they might have to find structure in a sandbox game. The End stands out as a nightmare from which players should want to escape, and it helps them appreciate the beauty and creativity in the End’s sister dimensions.
- Released
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November 18, 2011
- ESRB
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E10+ For Everyone 10+ Due To Fantasy Violence
- Engine
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LWJGL, PROPRIETARY ENGINE