Cursed Mod?.…Or Just a Happy Flying Horse?! Minecraft’s New Update Expands the Ghasts’ Lore—And the internet is all over them.

Piyush
Mar 27
4 min read

The first Minecraft Live event of the year has brought an exciting wave of biome specific changes, visual enhancements, and even a surprise addition that has left the community both surprised and excited.

With the "Spring to Life" update, a revolutionary visual overhaul, and an unexpected new mob drop, this year's first major update is going to take the Minecraft experience to the next level!

Spring to Life Update: A Breath of Fresh Air for Biomes

Mojang has taken a deep dive into improving the diversity of Minecraft's overworld with a much-needed biome overhaul. The 1.21.5 update acts as a major "spring cleaning" for existing biomes, as per the devs.

Biome-Specific Mobs and Environmental Upgrades

To make biomes feel more distinct, new biome-specific mob variations have been introduced:

Cold Cow: Inspired by Highland cattle, this variant sports longer horns and thrives in colder biomes.
Hot Climate Pig: Based on the red river hog, this new pig variant will be found in hotter climates.
Cold Chicken: Designed after Polish chickens, these feathery friends bring a fresh look to snowy areas.

Mojang has also focused on enhancing the overworld’s gameplay with:

New Sounds: With new wolf sounds, firefly bushes with particles mimicking fireflies, and rustling leaf litters, the game will introduce minor improvements in sound effects.

Firefly Bushes
Improved Ambiance: The desert biome will now feel more immersive with a combination of sand drifting and windy sounds, contributing to the emptiness vibe of the desert.
New spawn egg textures: To top it off, spawn eggs have received new textures, adding more detail to in-game mob generation. I'll miss the old textures, but for players new and old, these textures are definitely going to ease the confusion by a long shot.

New Spawn Egg textures
Improved Cartographer trading: Cartographers now trade maps for other village locations, making it easier for players to get to different villages nearby. Finally, finding a saddle won't be much of a hassle!

The new Cartographer trade menu

Minecraft Movie Tie-In Event:

Actress Emma Myers who plays Natalie from the upcoming Minecraft Movie made a special appearance, unveiling an in-game movie event running from March 25th to April 7th.

This event introduces minigames inspired by the movie’s settings, adding fresh interactive experiences for players. She also revealed fresh new capes that players can obtain in the ongoing movie event. Click here to learn more

Minecraft Vibrant Visuals: SCREENSHOTS

Minecraft's Vibrant Visuals takes aesthetics to the next level, using advanced texture techniques to enhance lighting, shadows, and reflections. The goal? To give every scene in vanilla Minecraft more screenshottable look; the stills speak for themselves.

Key Visual Upgrades

Emissive Texture Enhancements: Mob eyes like the spider's eyes, Enderman's eyes, and also glow berries in lush caves now glow with more intensity, making dark environments more enchanting and menacing.

Spider in the dark

Enderman

The lush caves with glow berries
Improved Farming Mechanics: Sunlight now plays a greater role in farming, requiring players to strategically place farms near light sources.
Enhanced Lighting and Shadows:
- Light now streams through windows, illuminating interiors more realistically.
- Underwater environments receive better reflections.
- Shadow effects across various placeable items will be more realistic which, judging by the clips, already looks stunning.

Vibrant Visuals will be introduced into the game in the settings, and as stated by the devs, you'd be able to play with friends who have the vibrant visuals toggle turned off, so no worries on that front.

Initially launching on Java Edition, the update will make its way to Bedrock Edition in the coming months. This, as stated by the devs, is just the beginning of a long-term effort to have Minecraft’s visuals be more of an influence in the core gameplay. Although such enhancements were possible before with user-developed mods, this update being natively supported will be a great jump up from those buggier effects.

Now that you've read so far, its time to address the elephant in the room.

A Never-Before-Seen Game Drop: The Dried Ghast and Its Adorable Evolution

One of the biggest surprises of the event was the reveal of a brand-new mob introduced in the Soul Sand Valley biome: the Dried Ghast.

This unusual block, found near the bone structures, features droopy tentacles, a sad expression on its face, and an overall miserable look. But rejoice — you can revive it.

The Ghastling

By placing this Dried Ghast block into water in the Overworld, players can trigger its fascinating transformation with a bit of patience. Over time, the creature will slowly brighten up, eventually turning into a Ghastling—an adorable, happy one than before. The Ghastling with its cute, cheerful sounds follows players around on a whim but gets bored pretty quickly.

What you can do to gain its interest however, is give it snowballs! Players can feed the ghastling snowballs and as it grows, the Ghastling will eventually mature into a Happy Ghast, retaining its playful nature but instead of a fun sized balloon, its now a big ball of happiness.

But that's just not the best part.

Rideable Ghasts? Yes, Please!

Mojang has taken player transportation to the next level by allowing the use of harnesses. With the harness, players can Ride their Ghastling as it flies, similar to saddles. An added relief is the support for up to four players per Ghast, on the mention of which I can easily predict Ghast squad race competitions as soon as this feature drops.

Players also get to see their friend’s locations using a locator bar at the bottom of the screen just above the hotbar.

These features are set to be a game-changer for survival builders looking to create massive structures high in the air with ease.

First Wave of Features and Future Expectations

The initial entries from the update that have been introduced as of March 25 include the biome-appropriate livestock variations and the leaf litter blocks.

With these additions, Mojang has evidently made a ton of improvements to the core gameplay, by laying emphasis on visual effects; minor improvements on block textures and lighting conditions; and addition of different mobs; the biome-specifics and the happy ghast. These additions as I see them, make this a top tier Minecraft update. You just cannot get enough of the Happy Ghast; Instagram is flooding at this point with its face 😂