Minecraft's 'Vibrant Visuals' Upgrade the Start of a New 'Graphical Journey'

At Minecraft Live, Mojang unveiled an exciting new graphical update for the beloved game, aptly named "Vibrant Visuals." This major visual overhaul is set to roll out first on compatible devices running Minecraft: Bedrock Edition, with future plans to extend it to Minecraft: Java Edition. The update promises a host of visual enhancements including directional lighting, volumetric fog, pixelated shadows, and sparkling water effects. Importantly, these are purely visual upgrades and will not alter Minecraft’s core gameplay mechanics. For instance, the new visual shadows won’t affect in-game light levels or the spawning of hostile mobs.

Minecraft Vibrant Visuals Comparison Screenshots

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Players will have the flexibility to switch between the new visuals and the classic look with just a button press, catering to those who prefer the traditional Minecraft aesthetic.

Agnes Larsson, Minecraft Vanilla’s game director, shared that the initial beta release of Vibrant Visuals is slated for a few months from now. “There's a lot of testing going on now to try to get it to as many platforms as possible, but it's important that it's high quality and good performance. So yeah, this truly is the start of the journey,” she explained.

Maddie Psenka, the senior product manager for Vibrant Visuals, elaborated on the project's development. “I think it's been a journey for a while. Something that we've wanted to do for the game. There has been past projects that we've had around graphics and wanting to do this kind of update, but I think this time we really wanted to take the space to build the foundations for this new mode. Not getting too ahead of things, making sure things were cross-platform and were really strong so we could build on top of that and release that with the community. We really wanted to give players what they wanted. We know this kind of visual update is something that they've been asking for a bit,” she said.

Psenka continued, “We weren't going as fast as we could on PC to make things look really great and call it done. We wanted to make sure it worked on mobile, worked on console. There's a lot of complexities of course, as you can imagine when jumping across platforms and the different backends there. But it's something that we really took our time with to put something forward that we really are proud of.”

This graphical update marks the beginning of a new visual journey for Minecraft, one that Mojang intends to refine and expand over the coming years. The goal is to strike a balance between the iconic Minecraft look and the desire to bring it into the modern gaming era. Jasper Boerstra, Minecraft’s art director, commented, “As Minecraft continues to evolve, I think we'll find new things to add to the graphics over the years, right? I mean, we're always in active development and we're here to stay for a long time. Minecraft is always going on. It's more relevant than ever. So yeah, I think these graphic updates, whenever something comes up or we get new ideas or there's player feedback and forth, we might look into even more features.”

Vibrant Visuals will be a complimentary update for Minecraft players, reflecting Mojang’s commitment to enhancing the game without resorting to heavy monetization. This approach aligns with their philosophy of continual improvement and expansion, rather than creating a "Minecraft 2" or leveraging generative AI technology. Even after 15 years, Minecraft shows no signs of slowing down.

For more details on upcoming features, be sure to explore everything announced at Minecraft Live 2025.