Minecraft mini-game
Google has released a fun Minecraft experience you may want to check out when you have a spare 10 minutes.
Search for Minecraft in Google and you should see a Minecraft block icon appear at the bottom of the screen.
Click or tap it and the Minecraft mini-game will load up. Click on a section of Google’s search results and you’ll see Minecraft scenes full of blocks you can begin to mine.
It is a piece of time-wasting fluff but there is a little more to it than initially appears. A score counter sits at the bottom-left of the screen, counting how many blocks you have chopped.
And, as you continue, you will upgrade your pickaxe, just as you would in the actual Minecraft game.
The obvious question: why has Google made a Minecraft mini-game? After all, its 15-year anniversary was last year, not in 2025.
This is actually going to be a much bigger year for Minecraft though, and Minecraft Live 2025 has just taken place.
Minecraft Live 2025: All the announcements
During the show we were able to see a new trailer for A Minecraft Movie, which is due out on April 4, and heard about big changes coming to the Minecraft game proper.
First up is the Vibrant Visuals mode. This gives Minecraft much better lighting effects, with dynamic shadows, reflections and glowing elements. The game looks totally different in its underwater areas too.
It is coming to the Bedrock editions of the game “in the coming months” and there are plans to bring it to Minecraft’s Java edition.
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We are not sure how this will affect performance if it is run on less powerful PCs but it does make the game look more appealing.
The Minecraft team announced two updates coming to the game, with the first due on March 25.
The Spring to Life update makes Minecraft biomes more distinct, with specific blocks, variations in creatures, new sounds and particle effects. Minecraft’s team also teased a new block-slash-object, the dried ghast.
It is a dehydrated version of a Ghast you can find and rehydrate using water. It grows up too, bringing a virtual pet element to this new feature. And when fully matured, you can ride the Ghast as a flying mount.
Microsoft’s execs are no doubt much more concerned about the release of A Minecraft Movie than they are with the upcoming Ghast creature features.
The Super Mario Bros Movie in 2023 became the highest grossing movie video game adaptation to date, earning more than a £1 billion in cinemas. Can A Minecraft Movie pull off the same sort of success? The film stars Jack Black as Steve and Jason Momoa as Garrett Garrison, who is pulled into the Minecraft world.