I Keep Trying To Like Minecraft Bedrock

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I’ve written a few times about Minecraft now. About how the ending made me think about life, about how Notch was kicked to the curb, and how to reconcile the ultra-child pandering Mojang does even though a good portion of their playerbase are adults. And that’s part of what I want to talk about today, but it’s more in-relation to the age-old battle of the versions: Java vs. Bedrock. As “age-old” as it could possibly be, fifteen years into the future since its release.

Like the title of this post says, I keep trying really hard to like and enjoy the Bedrock Edition. Which is hard from the get-go, because I have to use an Android emulator to load it up … because I’m on Linux, and Bedrock is the spawn of Microsoft. If you aren’t using a bloatware operating system with spyware embedded as features, then you’re not “allowed” to play any versions of Minecraft, except for Java. Because, and I don’t really have concrete proof of this, but I’m pretty sure Microsoft loathes Java’s existence.

Why would Microsoft hate Java Edition? Mainly, I think they were hoping a version of the game written in C++ and Python rather than Java, with console crossplay, would make everyone want to jump ship and move over.

Not so much, though.

And it’s not for lack of trying, either.

I’ve actually been a Bedrock user for years, even though my original purchase of the game was the Java Edition alpha back in 2010. I was originally attracted to Bedrock back in 2021, because, “Hey, I can load this up on my phone! Sweet!” And, from experience over the years now, I feel like that’s almost the only positive.

We can try to ignore that Bedrock Edition doesn’t technically have any mod compatibility, even though there is some kind of functionality on Curseforge (that is really only available to, again, Windows users), but it’s extremely impossible to ignore that not only do they have their little microtransaction marketplace directly in the main menu, but they try to entice you to buy things when you’re creating a new world!

Imagine loading Minecraft in 2010 and when clicking to get to a new world, you had a scrolling list of advertisements for cosmetics you could buy for your avatar right in your face, before you could even click the initialization button.

That’s what it’s like.

But what about online functionality and crossplay?

The Realms have been a positive for me, because I’ve been able to invite and have friends in my game, and build together a bit, but even that is hindered in comparison to Java Realms, because with a Java Realm, I can install a bunch of client-side mods, and have a semi-modded experience that none of the other players have to worry about downloading. And you might say, “Sure, but you can install purchased or downloaded datapacks from the marketplace, directly onto your Realm!”

Here’s one of the other issues with the marketplace, on top of having a very child-like flare about it that is obviously intended to lure children into asking their parents to spend money for Microsoft: A lot of the “mods” on the Bedrock marketplace are actually just maps. A special map you load up in a singleplayer instance where you can mess around with whatever neat feature the purchase promises, and then that’s it. You can’t take it anywhere else. Not in a singleplayer world of your own creation, and definitely also not a Realm.

Don’t believe me, go try it.

But hey, you can get Steve’s Lava Chicken into your realm. For whatever that’s worth.

By this point you’re probably thinking, “So you just really like mods?”

Yeah! The base vanilla experience of Minecraft is cool, for sure. But, for example, I find it really hard to enjoy bumbling around my world without something as simple as a minimap and a world map. Getting lost forever isn’t fun. I need to know where my base is at, at all times. And, sure, there’s the lodestone compass, but I like visuals! A history of where I’ve been, and where I can still go.

And don’t even get me started on how amazing the Essential mod is. What the heck.

The over-arching problem so far, though, is that Microsoft really wants your money, and they want money from gullible children even more.

Even the featured community servers kind of suck.

I remember loading into one of them, where any semblance of actual Minecraft had been erased, and it was morphed into this bastardization that’s more Roblox than anything, and when loading into their “survival” “game” where you’d expect to … forage, punch trees, and build, it’s just other players destroying everything and killing everyone, ad infinitum, forever.

Garbage.

If you have a Minecraft server and a survival area for players to … play Minecraft, the first thing you do is turn PVP off and turn on block claiming. Griefing is for people who don’t enjoy things.

For crying out loud.

But all of these little irritants so far don’t even scratch the surface of actually playing the game as it was intended, sans the Youtuber copy-paste crap that most of the featured servers are.

On the surface, the actual gameplay is mostly fine, and heck, you can put up render distance for like a billion miles! But I’ve noticed that there’s, somehow, less random generation of structures on the surface of a world. In a seed I copied from Java, all of the interesting bits were completely absent on Bedrock. It was the same seed, and I found the exact spot where my base is built on Java Edition, but the village is non-existent. Replaced by an empty field of a few trees and a hill (the same hill you can see in the Java version).

Is it the code that makes the game run better on Bedrock, or is it Microsoft/Mojang retooling seeds so that they generate less rather than the same amount?

And then there’s the combat. Hoo-boy. There’s no cooldown system on weapons, and this might be a positive for some, but with your shield, in order to block … you have to CROUCH.

WHAT?!

All of these grievances suck, though, because I want to like Bedrock, but I hate Microsoft. It’s the same issue with all mega-corporations. Everything is dictated by the need for infinitely increasing profits and taking zero risks whatsoever.

And it’s a miracle they haven’t wiped out the team working on Java.

The one other thing I do really enjoy via Bedrock are the skins. On Java, you kind of just make your skin, and upload it. But on Bedrock, you can equip different appendages, special clothing, hats, head pieces, 3 eyeballs, a gaping mouth. It’s fun!

But one cool thing that I genuinely enjoy doesn’t really outweigh all of this other stuff that’s frankly, just, really annoying.

I do hope that Bedrock can make it to a state that’s less grubby-fingered about your cash, and more about innovating and stabilizing the game. And maybe stop trying to be Roblox 2. Until then, though, I just can’t stop myself from giving Bedrock a shot for a few hours, and then eventually ending up back in my Java world wondering, “Why do I keep giving it a chance?”