Mojang's recent approach to updating Minecraft involves making changes to existing areas of the game. With Nether, oceans and villages receiving new content and a rework to caves coming soon, there aren't too many older features of Minecraft that need fixes to stack up with the current game. However, there is one major mechanic that has gone virtually untouched since the Alpha version.

Minecraft's day-night cycle is a crucial part of the survival aspect of the game. Staying outside at night is a dangerous affair in the early game, as the abundance of hostile mobs that spawn can often lead to an unprepared character's death. However, the night has remained fairly unchanged in the 11 years since launch. The last two hostile night mobs to be added were the Phantom in version 1.13 and the Enderman in the game's beta 1.8, with the Phantom only spawning if a player doesn't sleep for three days straight.

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Outside of those two mobs, however, nighttime hasn't seen too many significant changes. Players often can just skip through the night through the use of a bed, which also removes the threat of the Phantom mob. After the Caves and Cliffs update, Mojang needs to introduce more hostile mobs to Minecraft's night.

These new hostile mobs should provide a reason for players to adventure outdoors as night while still keeping the game's difficulty curve in check. As it is right now, the better gear a player gets, the harder challenges they can take on. The Enderman, which may be one of the more difficult night mobs to fight, won't actively attack the player unless provoked, allowing players to only take on that challenge when they feel ready.

As such, these mobs shouldn't be ones that actively attack the player on sight. Instead, they should be rare mobs that provide the player with valuable items and loot for risking journeying outside at night. This way, players don't need to fear being attacked by something way more powerful than them.

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One idea for a new hostile mob at night could be the return of the giant, which existed in the code of older versions of Minecraft. It was a zombie mob with increased scaling, used to test how the game would handle large mobs. The giant could be a rare night spawn in certain biomes that drops a large amount of experience and maybe a unique potion that causes the player to become larger.

Another possible returning mob that could help make the night more compelling is the red dragon. Back when the Ender Dragon was added to the game, there was talk of dragon mobs being added in the overworld. While that didn't come to fruition, the developers haven't outright stated that this will never happen.

The red dragon could spawn in special lair caves in mountain biomes. They could stay dormant in these caves at day and leave them at night to hunt. The player could raid these lairs at night to loot special chests that could contain items similar to dungeon chests, or even dragon eggs that could be hatched, allowing the player to have a pet dragon. This would give the player a reason to journey outside at night to raid these lairs without having to confront the dragon.

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The biggest problem with Minecraft's night right now it that there is no reason to experience it and more incentive to simply sleep through it. In addition to day being the safer time to explore, not sleeping for three days will cause the Phantom mob to spawn. This makes doing anything during the night a huge challenge due to the mob's genuinely challenging AI.

Because of this, the night in Minecraft could also use more hostile mobs that spawn alongside the usual skeletons, zombies and creepers. Mobs that drop unique weapons already exist, with both Illagers and Drowned having unique weapons. Introducing a somewhat rare zombie variant that drops a unique melee weapon could be a way to incentivize early-game players to go outside at night.

If preventing players from sleeping every single night is the aim, then increasing hostile mob spawn rates based on how often the player sleeps could also work. Or, to go one step further, introduce new hostile mobs that have a higher chance to spawn the more the player sleeps. They could take on a nightmarish appearance similar to the low sanity hallucinations in Don't Starve and would introduce a way to balance sleeping and surviving through the night.

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Increasing the difficulty of Minecraft's night mobs could make the early game far too difficult for new players, but there are ways Mojang could address this. These challenges could be locked behind either a difficulty setting or an in-game event. Or Mojang could take a page out of Terraria's book and have these changes and world spawns come into play after defeating the Ender Dragon.

Mojang has put a ton of focus and effort into updating many of Minecraft's older features to today's standards. There isn't too much left in the game that could use improvements, but the difficulty of the game's night mobs are absolutely one of them. It's way too easy to just sleep through the night, and little reason not to do so. New night mobs would absolutely be the incentive the game needs.

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