The holiday spirit will come to the Minecraft Marketplace before week’s end, announced developer Mojang on Tuesday. All of the content featured in the announcement will be premium DLC (because why would one of the best selling games in history give anything away for free?), and features a theme to celebrate Christmas in the world’s most popular sandbox game.
First up is the new Norse Mythology Mash-Up Pack, a relatively self-explanatory new addition to the list of Minecraft visual overhauls. The new mash-up pack lets Minecraft players visit blocky versions of the Great Hall, Hel, Yggdrasil and other iconic locales from Norse mythology. New skins include a who's who of the Norse pantheon, from Odin and Thor to Sif and Heimdall, along with lesser mainstays like wolf and bearskin-clad berserkers. The Norse Mythology Mash-Up Pack also includes reskins for a shockingly long list of enemy mobs.
Mojang also highlights a sprawling array of new community-created holiday content on the Marketplace this week. Beginning Thursday, players will find mods who will invite them to winter festivals, join a pirate’s Christmas celebration or take a ride in Santa’s sleigh. Although than a dozen unique Minecraft add-ons will be part of the holiday promotion, today’s announcement didn’t include pricing information for any of the upcoming Marketplace content. A handful of the holiday additions are currently available, but the vast majority will arrive on/after Dec. 21.
It’s a bit disappointing to see that Mojang will not follow the lead of the many other studios, like Io Interactive and Blizzard, which release holiday content free of charge. The Minecraft Marketplace may have been created to give the community’s growing legion of content creators a chance to make a living (or at least some side income) off their work, but that doesn’t mean Mojang can’t produce a separate batch of holiday-themed content too. Most players probably wouldn’t want a holiday update if it meant slowing development of Minecraft Update 1.13. But it's still a disappointing follow-up to last year's Festive Mash-Up Pack.
Minecraft is currently available on PlayStation 3, PS4, Xbox 360, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, PS Vita, the New 3DS, PC and numerous smart devices.
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