When not diving into their Scrooge McDuck-style pools of money, the folks over at Mojanghave announced they’re working on Minecraft 1.9, dubbed The Combat Update. Three guesses as to what it’s going to be about.
Alongside the obvious and so greatly needed changes to melee combat; shields, new unannounced blocks, potions; and subtitles are going to be brought into the game in the near future. Oh and you’ll be able to respawn the Ender Dragon. Yeah, that thing everyone fought once and then totally forgot it existed.
The first snapshot of 1.9 has been released, however a lot of the stuff Mojang is promising hasn’t been added just yet. Interestingly, what is new in the snapshot isn’t being discussed, so venture forth and discover:
“I’m not going to tell you what’s new, but I will tell you what isn’t new… yet.”
It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia star Rob McElhenney will direct the Minecraft film; Fast & Furious 6 actor Joe Taslim will appear in Star Trek Beyond; Angelina Jolie will direct a film for Netflix; an Independence Day: Resurgence writer will adapt The Reckoners book series for the big screen; and Roland Emmerich’s gay rights drama Stonewall has secured a fall 2015 release date.
Mojang – the video game developer for the hugely successful Minecraft – has announced that Rob McElhenney will direct the upcoming film adaptation of the game. McElhenney is best known for his role of Mac on hit comedy series It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, which is expected to return for season 11 this fall or early 2016.
The Minecraft film will mark McElhenney’s first directorial feature, though he has been an instrumental creative force on It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. In addition to his acting role, he has served as a creator, developer, executive producer, writer, and director on the show.
Joe Taslim – who appeared as a minor villain alongside Luke Evans in Fast & Furious 6 – will reunite with director Justin Lin for next year’s Star Trek Beyond. While details about the actor/martial artist’s role are scant, it is said to give him plenty of screen time with the new villain, played by Idris Elba.
Taslim also previously appeared in director Gareth Evans’ action extravaganza The Raid: Redemption, but Star Trek marks only his second high-profile franchise role. He’ll join Elba, Sofia Boutella, and returning cast members Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Zoe Saldana, Simon Pegg, Anton Yelchin, Karl Urban, and John Cho. Star Trek Beyond hits theaters July 8, 2016.
Angelina Jolie will direct an adaptation of Loung Ung’s First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers for Netflix. The book centers on Ung’s account of surviving the deadly Khmer Rouge regime, who assumed power over Cambodia in 1975. What followed was a four-year reign of terror and genocide that claimed the lives of two million Cambodians.
The film’s script was adapted from Ung’s 2000 book by both the author and Jolie. Jolie will serve as producer alongside Cambodian filmmaker Rithy Panh, best known for the Oscar-nominated foreign film The Missing Picture. The project will begin filming in late 2015, and Africa – another of Jolie’s directorial projects – was postponed as a result. First They Killed My Father will premiere on Netflix in late 2016 and be submitted to major festivals internationally.
Carter Blanchard – who’s writing next year’s Independence Day: Resurgence – is writing a film based on Steelheart, the first book in what is known as The Reckoners series by Brandon Sanderson. Shawn Levy (Night at the Museum) is reportedly in line to direct the film, which is being eyed to become a franchise.
The story centers on a group of powerful beings known as Epics, wherein one such creature named Steelheart has become emperor. A group of rebels – known as Reckoners – is devoted to defeating them, and an eager new recruit with revenge of his mind could be integral to that victory.
Roadside Attractions will release Stonewall– the new film from director Roland Emmerich – on September 25, 2015. The film chronicles the riots that took place when police raided the Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village of June 1969 and the LGBT rights movement that followed.
The project marks a dramatic change of pace from Emmerich’s usual fare, which includes big-budget blockbusters like Independence Day, The Day After Tomorrow and 2012. Stonewall stars Jeremy Irvine, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Ron Perlman, and Jonny Beauchamp.
If you always wanted Nintendo to make a 3D Mario game using some of the best technology in the games industry, you’re going to want to watch this video.
YouTube user aryoksini has uploaded a video of the iconic plumber running on Epic’s Unreal Engine 4.
“All the environment assets were taken from the Unreal marketplace, all the character actions were scripted using blueprints only, all animations were re-created from scratch as well as the PBR ready textures,” aryoksini said in the video’s description.
It’s pretty cool to see Mario running around environments that look as sharp as the best looking PC games out there, but Mario, of course, is more than just his looks. You’d have to make those environments fun to play before you’ll get a proper game, and don’t expect anyone to take up that task anytime soon.
Recently, a Super Mario 64 fan project that made the game playable in your browser was, unsurprisingly, been shut down by Nintendo. Any projects that use Nintendo’s IP without permission will inevitably be taken down as well.
New DLC based on ancient Greek mythology is now available for the versions of Minecraft.
Xbox One, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PlayStation 4 owners can now buy a $4 bundle that comes with 39 Greek mythology character skins (see the list below). There is also a custom texture set, new UI, and even an original soundtrack from composer Gareth Coker, who most recently did the music for Ori and the Blind Forest.
“Build a pantheon fit for the gods, trap the Minotaur in an elaborate maze, or set sail for adventures across the sea–the world is your square oyster!” Mojang said.
Mojang’s COO, Vu Bui, has claimed that there could well be a possibility of Minecraft coming onto Nintendo consoles in the near future, stating that their flagship game should be available “for all players.”
The possibility of Minecraft coming to Nintendo was seemingly squashed by Microsoft’s purchase of the company in 2014 for a fee of $2.5billion. Reason being, we’re pretty sure that Microsoft would love to have some of Nintendo’s best-selling content such as the Super Mario franchise, but Nintendo is keen to keep that exclusive to themselves.
On the other hand, it would seem Mojang’s COO is looking at the future of Minecraft on a much broader scale. During a recent interview with MCV at Minecon 2015, Mr Bui said the following:
“If I had my way, we’d be on everything,” Bui stated in the interview. “We want to continue to be available to all players, and that means being on new platforms because everyone uses something different. I’ve never heard a reason why we haven’t ended up on Wii U or 3DS. It just hasn’t happened yet.”
However exciting this might sound, Nintendo has previously warned that they would not favour the arrival of Minecraft unless it never got in the way of their first-party titles, such as “Super Mario Maker.”
This interview might not confirm the arrival of Minecraft to Nintendo consoles, although it does ensure all gamers that this idea is seemingly still on the table.
On a side note, we previously reported that Minecraft is trying to work its way into the education market and during this interview Mr Bui seemed confident with these developing plans.
“I don’t really see a limit for Minecraft in Education. I want to enable people to use Minecraft to enhance education, because people are already doing that. What we want is to inspire it to go further. I guess we’d eventually run out of schools to go into, but there is really no limit” he added.
I half suspect that the British Geological Survey’s continued Minecraft experiments are just an excuse to play Minecraft in work. “It’s educational,” they probably tell their bosses, before closing their latest 3D model and loading in to a Dropper map.
A year after creating the entirety of Britain and its geographical features in Minecraft, the BGS is back with a new project. They’ve now created 3D geological models of three sites across Britain: West Thurrock, York and Ingleborough.
“They show how the geology rises and falls, overlaps and folds at different depths,” explains BGS’s press release. “You are now able to see the rocks beneath north London, the soils that were deposited by ancient glaciers in York and how the ground is dissected by faults beneath the hilly slopes of Ingleborough.”
The three maps use a variety of tinted glass blocks to see the exact composition of different geological units under the surface.
Your level of interest probably depends on how much you care about a) Minecraft, or b) geology. Still, I do think Minecraft’s continued use as an informative or educational tool is neat. You can download the maps from this page on the BGS site.
