Minecraft players now have a reason to celebrate with this week's launch of the Exploration Update, a free expansion pack that brings new enemies, items, quests and even encourage players to chase down loot from far off lands.
Software giant Microsoft and developer Mojang have kept busy with Minecraft in the past few months. But most of those effort made have just gone into the mobile and console versions, leaving the PC version alone in the dark. The two have even introduced an Add-ons to the Windows 10 Mobile version that allows players to tweak the game's code to create customized characters, creature and etc.
This week's update emphasizes exploration to a number of new features the developers has made into the building-block adventure. The update is made specifically for the original, PC version running on Java, and it's the biggest such update since June.
Minecraft is one of the most popular games in the tech world, and Microsoft (the game publisher and owner) is constantly working to strengthen its position in the gaming market, and also to keep those millions of players from coming back for more updates and other Microsoft related stuff. The game has been downloaded more than 100 million times across the gaming consoles, smartphones, and PC.
The latest Minecraft update features maps that may take players to special treasure locations, encouraging players to explore and chase down loot from far off lands.
According to Digital Trends, today's update is tailored for Minecraft players who want to explore Minecraft's vast wilderness in search of treasure and other valuable materials.
After downloading the Exploration Update and installing it into their PC, players will soon meet the Cartographer, a new village character that doles out treasure maps in exchange for precious stones like the emeralds. These maps may lead players to all-new treasure locations that have sprouted across Minecraft's worlds.
However, players need to be careful when following the maps, which contain deadly Guardians that give up valuable resources when defeated. Here, players are given the chance to explore a new location type that features a magic-wielding "Illagers", the Woodland Mansion
Players who successfully clear a Woodland Mansion of enemies will receive the Totem of Undying, a rare item that automatically saves players from dangerous situations that could spell for death. This item activates when a player's health meter empties, providing players with energy and restoring them to full strength after enemy ambushes.
Finally, the highlight of the big update, the long-distance transportation, which allows the players to bring its treasures from the mansion or any other faraway locations in the game to its home base.
Launched on 2011, Minecraft is a three-dimensional sandbox video game originally created by Swedish game designer Markus "Notch" Persson and later developed by game developer Mojang. The game, which composed of rough 3D object called cube, encourage players to play a game with no specific goals to accomplish, giving players a huge amount of freedom in choosing how to play the block-building game.
The Minecraft's "Exploration Update" is currently available as a free download for the Mac and PC versions.
