With the Minecraft 1.21 update and mob vote on its way, there are a lot of opinions within the community over expectations and excitement.

One really popular part of the update is the mob vote where fans of the game decide on which one of three creatures (mobs) will join the game in the update. The first mob vote was an interactive livestream on November 18, 2017, at Minecon Earth 2017, where watchers were able to vote from four options. The Barnacle, The Phantoms, The Great Hunger, or The Wildfires. After three rounds of voting (each taking 30 minutes), the Phantoms won with 52%. Since then, Minecraft has had six mob votes, making this year’s vote the seventh.

As for this year’s mob vote, Here are the contenders and their abilities:

Crab: Living in the Mangrove Swamp, waving at players, and having one giant claw that allows the crab to climb, This special mob will drop a tool called the Crab Claw that will give players the ability to place blocks further away, which could be helpful more for builders of the game.

Armadillo: Typically found in warm biomes such as the Savannah, this skittish mob drops a special scute to build armor for your pet wolf, protecting it from Hostile mobs. You can see them curl into and out of a ball in the trailer.

Penguin: Clumsy on land but graceful in the water, this friendly mob lives in the Stony Shore biome. The penguin will add a speed boost to your boat similar to dolphins in the game and dolphins grace to the player, adding a speed boost for swimming.

On October 15th 2023, Minecraft held Minecraft Live and announced the winner of the mob vote. The Penguin was the first to lose with the least amount of votes with the Crab in second making the Armadillo the overall winner of the 2023 mob vote.

But, we can’t solely talk about the positives of the mob votes, we also have to talk about the controversial part of the mob vote.

Although the mob vote is supposed to be a fun way to hype up for the update, it has appeared to cause some controversies and issues within the community. This is happening because some people really like all three options and don’t want to pick just one and although Mojang has said in the past that losing mobs can eventually get into the game, it is beginning to appear more and more unlikely. The reason for this is the constant cycle of having the mob vote and announcements, saying that the losers will eventually get into the game, spend a year working on the update and adding the new features into the game, and by the time they can get started on the old mobs, it’s time for the mob vote again.

As quoted by the popular YouTuber known as Captain Sparklez, “It’s time once again that they pin us all against each other to decide on which mob gets to next be added to Minecraft”. This is an accurate representation of how the majority of the community feels about the mob vote, “I wish that all three mobs could join the game”. And Mojang has responded to these calls of distress within an X thread where they explained why they cannot simply add all three mobs into the game. A game developer discussed that they don’t have enough time, money, or energy to add all three mobs into the game and that the whole reason for having the mob vote is just to gain hype for the update.

Despite Mojang explaining this, the backlash of the mob vote continues as people claim that “Mojang is just being lazy”, simply because they can’t add all three. As of right now, people are contemplating boycotting the vote and some are even creating positions to add all three mobs into the game.