In an update slated for this fall, Minecraft for Windows 10 and Windows Phone will receive the Boss Update, bringing the three-headed Wither boss, underwater Guardians and much more.
As part of the update, Ocean Monuments will be included in the Windows Store versions, making the leap from Xbox and the Java version. Ocean Monuments are rare locations that are often sources of treasure, as well as one of the update's boss battles — the Lovecraftian Elder Guardian.
Joining the Elder Guardian is the ghostly Wither boss. The Wither can be summoned, and are sought out for their Nether Star loot item. Nether Stars can be used to craft beacons, which not only grant you a way of finding home, but also provide positive status effects to nearby friends.
As a result of including Ocean Monuments and the Wither boss in the game, Minecraft will pick up Prismarine, Sponges, Sea Lanterns and other materials previously unavailable to Windows 10 and Pocket Edition users.
Also, you will be able to use slash commands on the Windows Store versions of Minecraft for the first time, allowing you to easily trade, spawn creatures, alter the day and night cycles and various others. The Boss Update will include 20 commands, with more planned for the future.
The Boss Update will hit Windows 10, Pocket Edition and Gear VR this fall. The team at Minecraft is also teasing additional news for the Boss Update that they're saving for Minecon 2016 which will take place at the Anaheim Convention Center on the 24th and 25th, September in California.
A little snippet from our live steam last night :P pic.twitter.com/eXlM0dxEys— Zac Bowden (@zacbowden) 27 August 2016
Daniel Rubino gets acquainted with Minecraft on our Beam channel.
As we learned at E3, Minecraft will eventually expose its code to players, allowing us to customize the behavior and skins within the game. Using programs as simple as MS Paint and Notepad, Minecraft will teach the fundamentals of game development using basic JSON strings. See the link below for more information.
Minecraft is an ever-evolving project and joins Halo and Gears of War as one of Microsoft's biggest game franchises. Eventually, all versions across mobile, PC and Xbox will reach parity with one another, allowing players to connect to dedicated shared worlds in the Microsoft Cloud. Minecraft has been nothing short of a phenomenon so far, but there's still plenty of potential.
