Mojang reached out to me last week offering an interview with the senior product manager for Minecraft, Anna Lungren, who you may have seen talking at various Minecraft lives. She's one of the main people in charge of game drops. I was honestly surprised they reached out. I wasn't sure if Mojang liked me given my ranting, covering leaks, destroying Education Edition a bit, but I'm glad they did and I accepted. For transparency, they did want a list of my questions beforehand, but they let me ask every question I sent without alteration, which means these are all official Mojang answers. I was told the focus would solely be on Mounts of Mayhem, which is the new Minecraft update that just came out, adding spears, nautilus, and a bunch of

new enemies. So, I couldn't just ask about anything, but I definitely tried to sneak some stuff in around the edges. And we got some new and interesting information about how Mojang puts together an update and what things they focus on. I asked about everything from rare items to the potential of old features being added to people being angry about changes. And yes, I asked about minecarts. So, without further ado, here's my interview with Mojang. I'm a huge fan of rare things in Minecraft. I'm kind of known for it. Um, and this drop specifically added diamond nautilus armor, which is a 1% drop chance. And there's secret hidden mobs like the coral zombie nautilus. Um, and

those are some of the rarest, like I think Netherite, Nautilus armor might be the rarest item in the game. So, how do you handle the trade-off between making a cool feature and you obviously want players to use it, but part of the reason it's valuable is how rare it is and that some players won't be able to get it. Yeah, that is a really good question and that's a balance that's interesting. Of course, we don't want everything to be hidden away, but we do want some features to be rare. Some of them just, you know, as being powerful, rewards being more rare than other things, but also some things that are just fun variations that can surprise and delight you. Even if you are playing

the game a lot and you spent hours and hours in the same world, you still want to be able to be like, "Oh my god, a blue axelottle. I haven't seen that before. A brown panda, right? it brings a smile and we want to offer that even for our more like dedicated players. Speaking of that, I've been playing Minecraft since I was six and I've learned things about the real world like glass is made in the real world from melting sand. Uh I also learned that the sun rises in the east from Minecraft, but um it also has portals and dragons, creepers of course. Um and in Mountains of Mayhems, we see stuff like that. We see the nautilus, which is a real animal, but you can also ride it and breathe underwater, and there's a zombie

nautilus. So, how do you manage the tension between realism and fantasy during game design? First of all, I love that you learn so many things from Minecraft. I think that's beautiful, but as you point out, the Minecraft world is not the real world. It does have a lot of fancy elements, but it can still teach you some useful things. Uh when we do more realistic features, we always try to Minecraftify their visuals, sounds, and behaviors and you know, we do a Minecraft interpretation of something even though it might be something that does exist in a real world and we have ideas around. Um take your cat for example. The cats in the games, they do have some of the similar behaviors, right? They can come and

cuddle up on you during night, but they do also they are simplified, right? Uh, with the Nautilus shell already being in the game and that being connected to underwater breeding for our players, it seemed to make sense to also when we did our Minecraftified version of the Northwest to also connect that somehow to oxygen levels and being able to not have to think so much about breeding underwater. So, you know, that's sometimes how the process can go. Well, speaking of the nautilus, the nautilus shell has been in the game for over 7 years. Um, has the idea for the Nautilus mob existed for that long or did it come along later?

I think that is a really good question. So, the idea haven't been around for that long. And for this game drop, we knew that we wanted to add a mount underwater both to help players with underwater exploration a bit earlier in the game progression and also for the drown that we wanted to have mounted, you know, to match with the C husk riders and the zombie on the zombie horse in this drop. Uh, so we wanted something there for the underwater combat challenge and the Nautilus was just one of several designs that we considered, but then in the end, the existence of the Nautilus shell was one of many things that made us feel like the Nautilus design

was the most fitting for the game. We love when we can connect uh existing features to new things that we add or existing systems with new features. Yeah. So, speaking of that, uh, zombie Nautilus jockey, I've noticed in this drop specifically, there's a lot of new hostile mobs, enemies, challenges. So, me as a more experienced player, I like all the difficulty and new challenges, but how do you balance that for more casual players who are scared of those things? How do you go about balancing difficulty with, you know, trying to make it fun for more casual players? Yeah, so that's actually also a really good point. It is very

important to make sure the game feels balanced for different player types and players in different parts of their progression through the game. Uh, and I think that goes both for adding new things and revisiting old features as well. And for this drop, we wanted to offer a new challenge um, and new opportunities for combat. And we loved what the spear added to Mons of Mayhem and that it comes in all the tiers. You can really grow with it. And you know, if you're a new player, you try out a wooden spear and start there. And that's something that grows with you a bit as well as you progress cuz both that you can use a better material tier to make more damage with it, but also like you do get a set back there as well.

like your Netherite spear, it's going to take a bit longer before you can charge it again when you attack and things like that. So, that's one way how we try to balance it for different players and where they are. Uh, when it comes to it being a little bit scary, yeah, Minecraft can be a little bit scary sometimes, right? That's true for the game at large, but we hope it's not too scary for any players so they find their like difficulty setting that feels balanced for them. Okay. Yes. And speaking of scary, The Garden Awakens was last year's winter drop. probably more of a scary themed drop, but I've noticed I mean we've only had like a few drops. It hasn't been that long, but I noticed Garden Awakens was last year's winter

drop. This year, Mountains of Mayhem added a lot of hostile mobs, while something like Chase the Skies and the Happy Ghast kind of a more vibrant, fun, happy golucky type of update was in the summer. So, I don't know. Does that have any mapping where we're getting more difficult stuff maybe in the winter and then more happy chill stuff in the summer or is that all just a coincidence? That's a sharp observation and I'd say there is no thought behind tying different types of content to real world seasons. We rather try to find content for different player styles throughout the year uh with our game drops. So, you know, Spring to Life, Chase the Skies, Copper Age, they were focused

on things like exploration, building engineerings, and Mountain of Mayhem now focuses on mounted combat. So, it more felt like we wanted to cater to a player type again, and it just happened to coincide on the same type of season. Okay, that's interesting. Um, I've seen a lot online. Mounts of Mayhem specifically, I think maybe has the most content we've seen from a single drop. There's there's just a lot from the spear to the nod. There's like three four new mobs, the whole spear thing. Um, but I've seen players online, some people are negative, some people criticize the quantity of changes in each drop. So, I'm wondering how does Mojiang view this and how do they balance quality versus

quantity in game drops? Yeah. So, first of all, I would say like size is a little bit subjective when it comes to the game drop, but I do agree that mounts of mayhem has been one of the bigger ones that we have delivered and for the past 2 years since we switched to the game drop strategy. We have seen different sizes with the different game drops and it's a strategy where we try to as I mentioned with the previous question try to cater different players during different parts of the years right so even if you feel like one game drop is not for me it's not the content here it's not so long until you get a new one uh and with the things we do deliver we always strive to deliver those at quality but sizes for

game drops will vary in the future as Well, uh, how much we can place into a game drop depends both on how complex the features are and many other factors. So, those are things to balance out as well. So, speaking of complex features, things to balance, the spear, it's the first new tiered tool weapon in over a decade, but I just feel like it's such a complex type of weapon. I think it's probably easily the most complex weapon in the game. has a longer reach, a minimum reach, two types of attacks, and it has immense potential to deal a ton of damage if you use it right. So, what was more difficult when balancing the spear? Was it the single player aspect PvE or was it multiplayer PvP?

So, both parts are super important, but when talking to our designers, they say like the PVE balancing was slightly more difficult. uh especially with the spear potentially being a first weapon for a new player in the game or the first weapon you'll craft in a new world. Um and it needs to function as an alternative for the sword and not be too weak or too powerful in comparison, right, with the different tiers. So that was a huge uh complexity there in balancing it. [snorts] And also something that's really important to keep in mind when it comes to PvP as well is that players and server owners can set the rules if they don't like how the spear would disrupt something in their experience, right?

They can exclude it or make changes to it. Uh which also gives them more freedom whereas with the PVE we always needs to ensure like that is what it is in the na experience if that makes sense. I see where that makes sense. Um, another mob that's kind of new, but it's debatable. The zombie horse. I think maybe it's the most interesting mob, just the fact that it's it's finally in survival. It's been, for those who don't know, it's been in only accessible through commands or in creative for 12 years, but never in survival. And there's a few other things, whether it be items or mobs or whatever, that is maybe either creative only or commands only or scrapped fragments of the game. Is it often that Mojang kind of looks back and looks

at those things and thinks, well, maybe if this fits here, if this fits here, or do you think this is just a one-time thing? It's it's ne it's never going to happen. Yeah, the zombie horse is really interesting and I would I would however say it was never really scrapped. It was always there halfway in, right? You could find it in creative mode and as you say behind commands, you could still get it to survival as well. Uh but I think like the skeleton horse was also in a way not fully in survival mode for some while and then the timing came when we wanted to find like the skeleton rider amount. it felt really suitable. And in the same way

here, it did make so much sense to bring in the zombie horse as the mount for the zombie when we wanted to equip them with the spear for a mounted combat challenge. Uh, and to the point of your question, yes, we always think about new and old ideas, and I think uh the addition of fireflies with their new design in spring to life is another example of that. or how the copper golem uh made its way into the copper age drop, which is also an old idea that we were all familiar with, right? Yeah. I guess I didn't really think about that. Like a lot of the stuff this year was kind of I mean, the copper golem was completely different than the copper golem we saw. I think way better. I didn't vote for the copper

golem initially, but if we got this copper golem, I definitely would have. Um and then obviously the fireflies and now the zombie horse. That's interesting. Um, my final question in Mounts of Mayhem, we've we've seen a lot of new mounts, the Nautilus, zombie Nautilus, zombie horse, camel husk, but also some updates to older mounts, like being able to swim on a horse through water. One mount, kind of a mount, debatable. We haven't seen changed since, of course, the minecart experiments last year, um, is the minecart. Was there any considerations to change the minecart? I'm a big fan of mine carts. Um, was there any consideration to make any change for it in Mountain Mayhem or is there any going forward maybe? So, yes, I've kind of noticed your

interest in minecarts. It comes through in your channel. Uh, and we love hearing that type of feedback from players like yourself and everyone in the community what they wish to see new things or, you know, improvements to existing things in the game. And we do want to keep adding new features and updates for existing features for Minecraft for many years to come. So, anything is possible, but I can't share any news on any further plans after months of Mayhem at this point. All right. Well, thanks for the interview. I thought it was great. Um, yeah. All right. That's where we'll cut off the recording, I guess. I've never done an interview