Mojang says it's learned from showing off Minecraft features too early
This year's Minecraft Live will focus on features "really far in the development process."
The world of Minecraft is forever growing, which Mojang now talks about in detail during its yearly Minecraft Live showcases. During one of its more frequent Minecraft Now streams where developers play together and answer questions, creative director Agnes Larsson fielded a question about the next major Mojang showcase.
"First of all, there will be a Minecraft Live this year," Larsson said, in case there was any doubt. The date for that will be October 15, 2022. She also explained that Mojang has learned from past events what to show players and, crucially, what not to.
Larsson said that one of the major goals of Minecraft Live is to "create player dreams" and celebrate with fans. "For this Live we have actually taken concrete actions to make sure we really, really can fulfill these dreams. [...] This year we will make sure the features we show have come really far in the development process."
She calls that focus "learning from mistakes," most likely referring to the big Minecraft Live 2020 that laid out plans for a ton of upcoming features. The deep dark biome and wardens launched in the 1.19 update, a year later than the 1.17 update they were planned for. Others, like the frog food debacle, were changed during development. Most notably, the backpack-like bundles and the archeology system were both put on hold.
"Of course we will still tweak [features] with feedback but we will be really confident that this is going to make it [into the game]," Larsson says.
Like past years, we can likely expect Mojang to run a community vote on which new creature to add into mainline Minecraft—the yearly "mob vote." And, almost certainly, a feature and name reveal for the inevitable version 1.20.
Historically, Minecraft Live covers all things Minecraft, not just the core game. We'll probably hear a bit more talk about Mojang's upcoming RTS spinoff Minecraft Legends, the action RPG Minecraft Dungeons, and probably something from Minecraft Education Edition too.
As ever, you'll be able to catch the Minecraft Live presentation on Mojang's YouTube channel at a to-be-announced time on October 15.