Minecraft Players Frustrated After The Wild Feature Gets Cut

By Tanner Dedmon

Minecraft was going to add fireflies in its update called "The Wild" whenever that update was ready to release, but that feature is no longer planned. Mojang confirmed in a video towards the end of April that the feature had been scrapped, but given that it wasn't highlighted as well as it apparently could've been, another video shared this week addressed the situation more directly. Players still aren't pleased the decision even after being offered a more detailed explanation, however, with many in the community saying that the feature should simply be added anyway.

Fireflies were supposed to be a food source for frogs, Mojang said, frogs being another part of The Wild. In the video seen here, Mojang explained that they'd discovered based on feedback from the community that some fireflies were harmful to frogs once eaten. It was decided that frogs would eat slime cubes instead, but frogs in Minecraft were supposed to produce light sources after eating enough fireflies, too, so no fireflies meant another cut feature. As such, it was said then that the frogs would instead produce light still by eating enough magma cubes which apparently in the Minecraft universe is less harmful to frogs than fireflies.

The more recent video from Mojang featured producer Anna Lundgren who more directly addressed the lack of fireflies.

"Fireflies was originally part of the plan for the Wild Update. We wanted them to be a food source for the new frogs, but then we got great feedback from you guys in our lovely community and you taught us that a lot of species of fireflies and firebugs that are out there are poisonous to toads and frogs. And of course we didn't want to add that into our game. So we provided the frogs with a safer food source – the tiny slimes! And fireflies are sadly no longer part of the plans for the Wild Update. We still think that the fireflies are super interesting as an idea and a concept, and they're part of our ideas library. But we don't have any concrete plans for adding them in any upcoming update."

While the video tackled a number of non-firefly topics despite being titled to focus on that cut feature, the top comments shared on the video all show that players are scratching their heads wondering why fireflies couldn't just be added anyway.

"They don't have to be edible for frogs for us to enjoy the visual improvements that the fireflies would add to the game overall," reads the current top comment about the situation.

"Fireflies should still be added just for ambience if nothing else," another said.

Those sentiments continued with players asking some decent questions: Why couldn't fireflies be added simply to be there with no interactions between them and frogs at all? More tongue-in-cheek comments pointed out how there were other dangerous things in Minecraft besides fireflies and that "every item must pass the frog consumption litmus test" to remain in the game.

For now, however, Mojang isn't adding fireflies in The Wild and apparently has no set plans to do so in a future update, but perhaps the community's sentiment will sway that decision. 

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