Minecraft YouTuber Xisumavoid weighed in on why player reaction to the 1.19 update has been so negative – saying it’s because of Mojang’s failure to deliver on the update’s promises.
Players have already begun exploring the new biomes of Minecraft’s 1.19 update, but many are underwhelmed by what the game has added.
Initially conceived to be a part of the Minecraft Caves & Cliffs updates, the Wild update added long-promised features like the deep dark and the new boss the warden. These were combined with newer additions like the mangrove swamp and allays to round out the 1.19 update.
But Minecraft players are still hung up on all the features that were promised, a sentiment that YouTuber Xisumavoid explained.
Minecraft 1.19 failed to deliver
Popular Minecraft YouTuber Xisumavoid took up the mantle for fellow players, explaining why the reception for the 1.19 update had been muted.
Xisumavoid noted that, while there weren’t any technical issues with the additions in 1.19, the lackluster reception from the player base was largely due to unfulfilled promises. “What failed over the last couple of events is not being able to deliver on these promises.”
Features that Mojang previously said would be included in the 1.19 update – including birch forests, fireflies, bundles, and archeology – were dropped with little warning. Others, such as fan-voted mobs like the allay and glow squid, were underwhelming compared to the initial teasers.
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Though Xisumavoid does acknowledge that some of these issues were due to fans’ imaginations running wild, he also points out that poor communication by Mojang is to blame.
“Presenting a community with unfinished prototypes that they can inject their own expectations onto is a recipe for disappointment,” Xisumavoid said of the mobs that were voted into the game by the community.
What is Xisumavoid’s solution?
Xisumavoid made it clear that he does not place the blame on any singular developer or member of the team. He acknowledged that Minecraft, though a simple-looking game, is quite difficult to develop.
In part, the difficulty comes from Minecraft’s development history.
But the game also needs to maintain parity between multiple different versions of the game on different consoles with varying capabilities. Xisumavoid points to bundles, which were originally teased to be added in the Caves & Cliffs update, but have been pushed back because of the difficulty getting them to work in other versions.
The solution that he ultimately proposes is for the development team to do more behind the scenes, and only tease features that will be added when they are close to being implemented. That way, Minecraft players will be pleasantly surprised to find a new feature was added, rather than disappointed to see an anticipated feature scrapped.