Minecraft's Nether update overhauls its underground world today

Minecraft's dingy underground realm has been given a makeover in the Nether update, out today. Once you dig down into your blocky worlds, you'll find new biomes to explore, like fungal forests, and bump into their denizens, some friendly and some, not so much. 

If this sounds appealing, you can give up natural light forever and spend the rest of your days living in the Nether, letting you respawn there even if you go back above ground. And from the looks of the patch notes, you'll have plenty to keep you occupied. 

With four new biomes (Basalt Deltas, Crimson Forest, Soulsand Valley and Warped Forest) comes a whole bunch of weird ecosystems playing host to new creatures, blocks, locations to explore, and AI behaviours.

Of the new additions, the piglins and hoglins have to be my favourites. Piglins are pig-folk who live underground, and while they're naturally hostile to players, their love of gold means that they'll turn neutral if you're decked out in gold armour. If you have gold ingots, you can even do some trading with them. 

Hoglins, meanwhile, are more like regular pigs, but they're also pretty aggressive. Life is tough in the Nether. Thankfully, you can befriend and breed them by feeding them crimson fungi. Both of them can also be zombified if they end up in the Overworld.

You might have seen some of this if you checked out the Nether snapshot, but the full update includes a massive list of tweaks, new stuff to explore, and more things to hit.  

The Nether update is out now for Windows 10 and Java versions.