Minecraft's 1.1 Discovery Update adds the Minecraft Marketplace with community-made content

Minecraft’s 1.1 Discovery Update, Mojang’s first big update of the year, is here and it’s launching today on Bedrock Engine platforms (Windows 10, mobile and virtual reality). It’s packed with tons of awesome features, including the Minecraft Marketplace! The studio’s very happy that they can now give players access to a growing catalogue of fun community-made content safely and simply–all while giving Minecraft creators another way to make a living from the game.

To kick things off, they’re launching it today with 14 amazing pieces of new content from some pioneer partners–6 worlds, 2 survival spawns, 2 texture packs, and 4 skin packs. Here’s what’s releasing today, with much more coming in the future:

• Worlds: Huge builds with their own storylines, objectives, custom texture packs and hours of gameplay.
  • Adventurer’s Dream by Noxcrew: Discover a stunning world full of ancient dungeons, magnificent treasures, and hidden secrets on your quest to summon the mighty dragon. Become the hero and forge your own legacy.
  • Annie: The Rise of Londinium by Blockception: An adventure based in different periods of time in the great city of Londinium. Guided by the AI Annie, will you be able to recover the lost data lost from The Event?
  • Automaton Dreams by Blockworks: Survive the cyber plains, build and craft. Arm yourself and get ready to battle your way through the Automaton Dreamer and his army. Collect the artefacts of the Automatons to reveal the final clue.
  • DestructoBot 5000 by Noxcrew: The world is under attack by evil Robo-Aliens! It’s time to gear up and pilot the amazing DestructoBot 5000 mech suit! Hunt down the Robo-Alien bosses and save the world.
  • Relics of the Privateers by Imagiverse: Experience a vast tropical wilderness on a whirlwind hunt for treasure. Unearth hidden temples, explore hostile jungles, and battle the invading pirates.
  • Space Battle Simulator by QwertyuiopThePie: Team up and fight between two futuristic space ships: The Clarke, and the Asimov. Form a strategy, and try to destroy the opponent’s ship.

• Survival Spawns: Builds that players can use as a base for their survival games.
  • Dustville Survival Spawn by Noxcrew: Get off the train in the desert town of Dustville and begin life in the west. Wander in the shade of the canyons and the old mines. Settle a farm out in the mesa. Ride out and find your own fortune!
  • Fallen Keep Survival Spawn by Noxcrew: In forgotten hills lies the Fallen Keep, a vast fortress forsaken and abandoned to time. Reclaim the fortress from evil’s grasp! Renew the glory of old! Become the new ruler of the Fallen Keep!

• Texture Packs: Reskin everything in the world with a new look.
  • PureBDcraft by BDcraft: Completely transform your Minecraft world into a comic! Blocks and items are revamped with this bright, bold high-definition pack.
  • Stone Age by Polymaps: Turn back time with this texture pack and relive Mankind’s earliest ventures! Fight off terrifying monsters and discover long-extinct species as you make your mark on the world.

• Skin Packs: Customize the player character.
  • Everyday Heroes by Razzleberry Fox: For role-playing or just to populate your worlds, this pack includes 16 career related skins. You can pick from a fireman to a scientist, a judge to an astronaut and more.
  • Pastel by Eneija: This skin pack is all about color–pastel colors, to be more precise. It’s an explosion of rainbow pastel happiness on a variety of characters to choose from in each color group.
  • Pirates and Fishfolk by Imagiverse: Ahoy mateys! Raise the jolly roger and become a pirate! Be a colonial settler, or a jungle castaway. You can even shed your skin in favor of scales to become a mythical sea creature!
  • Team Up! By Razzleberry Fox: 4 roles, 4 teams and lots of possibilities! Team up with your friends and show your color. This skin pack will make playing mini games and streaming more entertaining with clearly visible teams.

Aside from Marketplace, other features launching today with the 1.1 Discovery Update include:

• Adventuring in Woodland Mansions: Trade with the new Cartographer villager to get treasure maps, follow the map, and journey to the woodland mansion. Battle Illagers–villagers gone bad–to claim fantastic treasure.
• Exploration: Beef up your storage with Shulker Boxes, encounter Llamas in the wild (and make Llama trains, which are the best ever), Dyeable Beds, Smelt ingots to reclaim materials from tools, and enchant your equipment with Frostwalking or Mending.
• Creativity: build colorful structures with Glazed Terracotta or Concrete blocks.
• Add-ons: Movement will become data-driven, meaning you’ll be able to create remixed movement properties in your Add-ons.
• And we’re adding a third gameplay mode, Adventure Mode, for folks who like to make custom games and scenarios.

This has to be one of the most significant updates to Minecraft over the past few years and is absolutely fantastic. Because of the Discovery Update, Minecraft has the possibility of becoming a legitimate game development platform. The ability to let players create content and sell it on the store is extraordinary.