How we drowned Minecraft

How did you spend your weekend? Personally, I chose to make the most of mine by embarking on an underwater adventure. My destinations included ancient ruins formed centuries ago, which I explored while dodging attacks from poisonous fish. And yes, I also tried out the latest update in Minecraft Pocket Edition.

Experience the sharp taste of the upcoming update and a plethora of new features that will be introduced in Update Aquatic. How could one miss visiting these submerged ruins?

Why did the developers of Minecraft PE decide to create entire underwater worlds? The answer is simple. Exploration is a crucial aspect of the game, without which it cannot exist. Adding underwater structures makes exploration even more intriguing and enjoyable, as the ocean world is vast.

Just imagine being deep within a massive ocean, discovering its secrets. Various species of fish swim around you, with seaweed and marine grass visible on the ocean floor. Suddenly, you spot a structure—a long-abandoned village overgrown with vegetation. What mysteries do these ruins hold? What treasures lie hidden within? Perhaps you can restore it or establish your own marine base here? The choice is yours—players of Minecraft PE.

Underwater structures help achieve one of the main goals in Minecraft PE—making the exploration of ocean depths much more appealing. It’s worth noting that warm and cold oceans will differ based on biomes, adding further variety.

We hope this is just the beginning of what the developers of Minecraft PE have in store for us. You’ll be able to find treasures in the ocean depths. What lies within them? You’ll only discover that by diving into the game and trying out the experimental version.

These are the treasures we’ve managed to uncover in our worlds; we wish you luck in finding even more valuable loot!

But you’re not here for us to tell you about deep-sea ruins.

You’re here to learn about the most exciting update that can’t be compared to anything before it!

It’s safe to say that this feature will become the most popular in the world of Minecraft PE for years to come—and that is seaweed!

Seaweed! And perhaps a new type of fish? But who cares about them when there’s seaweed?

The addition of seaweed isn’t just an enhancement to the underwater realm; it’s introducing something new to Minecraft PE—animation. Until now, every plant had a static position, but seaweed has its own mechanics and brings new visual effects.

Previously, in Minecraft PE, there were blocks with partial animations, such as lava or water, along with some other solid blocks. However, animation was never applied to items or things with transparent parts.

In this project, animation became a significant challenge for the developers: “We couldn’t find a way to adapt the animation style, so we had to urgently search for it,” says one of the company employees.

Why did animating plants become such an insurmountable task?

The reason is that static plants underwater appeared very unrealistic, making it essential to add any form of animation. On the surface, adding animations is extremely challenging. Moreover, if each plant had its own animation, it would look overly lively.

However, underwater, where visibility is limited and fog obscures distant objects, the gentle swaying of seaweed beneath the waves looks quite pleasant. This animation creates a sense of calmness and relaxation underwater.

Don’t forget that you’re no longer the only explorers of the ocean in the world of Minecraft PE—charming pufferfish also love to roam the seas. One of them managed to sting me with its poisonous spike while I was leisurely taking screenshots for this article and hadn’t yet swum away.

As soon as you approach a pufferfish, they will inflate dramatically and explode, poisoning you with their spikes. Experienced fishermen in Minecraft PE might know that pufferfish were already added to the world of Minecraft PE, but only as fish. They had a funny yellow icon depicting a fish dying in agony.




“For the new update, we decided to unleash pufferfish and give them a real body. The design wasn’t particularly mysterious for us—they inflate and form a large ball, which we simply made into a block and added to Minecraft PE,” shares one of the developers.

“We started by implementing new yellow textures to make the fish resemble the one in the icon. However, we felt it necessary to optimize the appearance according to the new standard textures.

We aimed to closely match the fish’s appearance to that of a pufferfish. We added brown tones and a beige belly color when inflating. Blue fins were retained to pay homage to the old fish design.”

Now the fish looks exactly like it does in the icon—they’re flailing in agony!

You too can try all these features, including turtles, corals, and other oceanic wonders in the new Aquatic Update.