Xbox

It's been announced today as part of Minecraft Live that Minecraft will be getting a graphics upgrade in the near future known as "Vibrant Visuals", and it looks set to be released on a variety of devices including Xbox consoles.

Vibrant Visuals is designed to provide "improved visual elements such as directional lighting, volumetric fog, and more" while also remaining true to the team's creative principles, and the result is said to be pretty spectacular.

The result is dazzling – shadows move as the sun arcs across the sky, water reflects the landscape around it, and clouds appear infinite as they stretch far into the distance.

Improvements including volumetric lighting mean you’ll be able to watch the sun’s rays carve across the Overworld, and every block will cast its own shadow. Light will shine through your windows, and you’ll be able to see reflections in water and on the surface of metallic blocks, while subsurface scattering brings a gentle glow to leaves and grass. Mobs and items will also have more of a glow – spider’s eyes will be even more menacing in the dark, and torches will cast a radiant path back to your build. You can see this in action in the deep dark, too.

As things stand, there's no word on a release date for Vibrant Visuals in Minecraft just yet, but testing will begin for select Minecraft: Bedrock Edition devices in the near future. Mojang Studios says its hope is to bring Vibrant Visuals to "as many devices as possible" (either fully or partially), but no specifics have been provided thus far.

For those who are wondering, the Bedrock Edition of Minecraft is the one that's available on Xbox consoles, Nintendo Switch, Android, iOS, PC and various other devices, while the Java version is limited to PC. With Minecraft being a first-party title under the Xbox Game Studios banner, Vibrant Visuals is surely in the pipeline for Xbox consoles soon!