Will Copper Disrupt the Progression of Minecraft?

Mojang is playing with fire here.

Today I opened my YouTube to find a new minecraft update announcement at the top of my recommended. Ironically, I had another topic I planned on writing about today that was also Minecraft-related, but that will have to wait.

In their latest update video, Mojang has given copper a handful of new use cases. For the purposes of this discussion, the one standout announcement is that of copper tools and armor.

There’s an obvious discussion to be had here. Where exactly do I start, though? Minecraft’s traditional progression system:

Wood -> Stone -> Iron -> Diamond

got extended with the introduction of

Wood -> Stone -> Iron -> Diamond -> Netherite

five years and one week ago, and has largely been seen as a successful endeavor. This came in spite of immediate discourse of eroding tradition and arguing sacrilege for making an ore more powerful than diamond, because, well, it’s diamond! You can’t do that!

I’m aware of how those takes aged. I’m not explicitly rejecting copper’s new role, I’m more questioning it’s potential impact, because denouncing change for fear of cultural or traditional impact isn’t exactly productive. At the time, I think it was right to point out the lack of direct post-game progression to make use of netherite, because that’s exactly what we ended up with in following updates (the warden, tricky trials, etc.).

So what happens when the new ore slots squarely within the existing progression?

Wood -> Stone -> Copper -> Iron -> Diamond -> Netherite

Honestly, probably not much, but it may depend on the level of player you are. I’d wager seasoned players get to iron well within the first hour of starting a world, so was there really a gap to address? There may be, and time will tell, but I doubt many people were pining Mojang to close the gap between stone and iron. The issue is more so that copper is useless, which isn’t a strong case for effectively diluting the very solid pace of progression Minecraft’s ore system has demonstrably proven.

In a way, it feels like they’re backtracking. For all intents and purposes, if Mojang had strong conviction that copper’s purpose was, at least partially, that of an ore for progression, they wouldn’t have waited four years to give them such a role. Rewatching the Caves & Cliffs First Look, Vanilla Minecraft Game Director Agnes Larsson states:

“Yes, I think I got inspired by the pretty copper roofs in Stockholm, and they are all green because we have so many old buildings there. We actually added that mechanic to Minecraft… I think it’s so cool because it actually adds history to Minecraft.”

It’s safe to say that copper was always positioned as a building ore, but now Mojang feels the need to justify the sheer amount of it you find within caves by transitioning it’s role to one of more general purpose, à la iron or gold. A similar thing happened with Lapis quite some time ago, albeit to a far lesser extent.

Lapis didn’t get armor or tools, but it did see the entire enchantment system reworked alongside it. That panned out well, so this very well may too. I’m just struggling to find the merit in this specific use case for copper. It feels like Mojang is casually toying with one of Minecraft’s most tried strengths in an attempt to justify a past miscalculation.

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