Microsoft Over two years since being announced at E3 2017, developer Mojang has announced that Minecraft’s in-development Super Duper Graphics Pack has been cancelled due to technical difficulties.
The studio announced in a statement on its website that the graphical overhaul update was “an ambitious initiative that brought a new look to Minecraft but, unfortunately, the pack proved too technically demanding to implement as planned.”
The Super Duper Graphics Pack was intended to roll out a new look for Minecraft on various devices, including higher quality textures, improved visual effects, and 4K capability on Xbox One X. The update was originally supposed to arrive in Autumn of 2017, before being delayed to 2018.
Obviously, it didn’t arrive in 2018 either, and Minecraft fans were pretty much left in the dark until now, with the only communication between then and now coming from individual developers at Mojang who took to sites like Reddit to explain some of the problems the studio was facing.
In its official announcement, Mojang went on to explain that it wasn’t happy with how the update was running across various platforms. Rather than deliver an inconsistent update for different platform holders, the studio elected to scrap the project outright, and will instead look into “new ways for you to experience Minecraft with a new look.”
In a further statement given to Kotaku, a spokesperson for Mojang confirmed that the studio does already have other plans in place, and didn’t want to announce the cancellation of the Super Duper Graphics Pack until they were sure there was another route they could go down.
They explained:
We’ve been trying to solve Super Duper for a long time. We wanted to wait until we determined the path forward before officially addressing the project. We’re looking into different options with our Render Dragon graphics engine, and will have more to share soon.
MicrosoftIt’s unclear exactly how or when Minecraft will receive the visual update fans were promised years ago, but at least those of us playing the block building survival sim on PC can take comfort from one small word; mods.
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Ewan Moore is a journalist at UNILAD Gaming who still quite hasn’t gotten out of his mid 00’s emo phase. After graduating from the University of Portsmouth in 2015 with a BA in Journalism & Media Studies (thanks for asking), he went on to do some freelance words for various places, including Kotaku, Den of Geek, and TheSixthAxis, before landing a full time gig at UNILAD in 2016.