2025-07-02 11:24:14 by Rock Paper Shotgun

Out now for testing on Bedrock, with Java to follow Image credit: Microsoft / Rock Paper Shotgun Copper golems and new types of copper equipment are coming in the next big Minecraft update, which is available to test now in Minecraft Bedrock and available shortly as a Snapshot for the Java edition. The golems actually date back to Minecraft's 2021 Mob Vote - players cruelly snubbed them in favour of the musical, item-fetching Allay. Classic case of robophobia, if you ask me. What can some fairy jukebox junkie do that a golem can't. Luckily for you nay-sayers, Mojang have seen fit to add the oxidisable automatons to Minecraft anyway, in keeping with the idea that Mob Vote outcomes are more of a guide for development than a rigid prescription. As and when you get access to the update, you'll build golems by planting a jack-o-lantern or carved pumpkin atop a block of copper. This, to my understanding, is how the good Lord created Adam in the Garden of Eden, except that Adam did not immediately start going through the Good Lord's treasure chests within a set range and organising them by item. A copper golem is, in other words, a housekeeper. It'll ensure that each goodie you craft is stored in the same place. I look forward to the complaints from players who've had to start over because all of their diamond equipment has been industriously shuffled into some random cellar. I also like the idea of these worlds outlasting their creators and becoming a ceaseless hive of Mary Poppinbots. As with other copper items in Mojang's survival builder, the golems will corrode over time and develop a charming green patina, though this doesn't affect their operation. Copper in general will be more useful as of this updating. It's now an equipment tier, whose "durability sits somewhere between stone and iron", according to the official Minecraft website. Apparently, "a copper pickaxe will help you mine a bit faster and for a bit longer than a stone pickaxe but won't allow you to mine any additional materials - you'll still need to upgrade to iron for that." Being already abundant in Minecraft's generated worlds, it's "the perfect early-game material". In case you have been skulking in a Creeper hole these past 10 years and missed the acquisition, Mojang and Minecraft are currently owned by Microsoft. Microsoft are about to announce another round of mass layoffs, according to Bloomberg's Jason Schreier. If this does come to pass, the irony of it accompanying the addition of a new robot workforce to Minecraft will be just pressing enough to retrospectively justify me mentioning it here. Fingers crossed that Schreier is wrong.Before joining RPS, our news editor Edwin Evans-Thirlwell wrote a book about Minecraft's history in collaboration with Mojang and Microsoft. He's not receiving any royalties or similar on-going payments.