The amazing thing about Minecraft is the way the game provides you with the absolute freedom to create your own world and your own narrative, and provides you the tools to do so. This has led modders, builders, and creators from all corners of the globe to create a vast network of mods, maps, resource packs, and more to help players create the play experience they desire.
Probably because of the nature of vanilla (swords, horses, stone walls, that sort of thing), one of the most popular and exciting areas of development has been in medieval Minecraft. If you have the right tools, you can build and play in a rich, authentic medieval world complete with awesome textures, cool buildings, and denizens who look like they belong in ‘ye olde Minecrafte worlde’. Check out our list of our favorite resources, and start living the medieval life.
Resource Packs
Conquest
One of the best supported and most detailed resource packs around, Conquest is a great choice for fans of Medieval Minecraft — it updates all of the important textures and provides a great Middle Age feel without requiring too much fiddling or taxing your computer’s resources. It’s clean, easy on the eyes, has awesome connected textures, and is very thorough. It also receives frequent updates, making this a great choice for people who like to play on the current Minecraft patch or who don’t want to switch from version to version.
Ravand’s Realistic
If Conquest is the baseline for medieval Minecraft resource packs, then Ravand’s Realistic is the hardcore version. Though it can be tricky to use and put a lot of strain on your system, it adds some of the most detailed, thorough, and intricate textures of any resource pack around. If you want to feel like you’re really building or walking around in the Middle Ages, you can do no better than Ravand’s Realistic. And if you’re interested in building, it has some amazing connected textures and updates to blocks that allow for creating awesome builds that aren’t at all possible in vanilla.
Mods
Extended Villages
This is a neat mod that adds a lot of detail and functionality to your villages. It’s especially useful for fans of medieval settings because of the buildings it adds to villages and the roles it provides for villagers. Extended Villages adds, among other things, a windmill, a bakery, a mine, and a fishing hut, allowing you to add some depth to your medieval towns and castles. Whether you’re working on build, setting up a server, or just like to wander around in a more developed medieval world, this is a great mod to use.
Medieval Weapons
This is a small but useful mod that can add a lot of depth and variability to your medieval game. Medieval Weapons adds several new weapons and recipes to give your medieval-themed game some more options — there’s a crossbow, a hammer, a battleaxe, and more, all of which have new recipes associated with them. The mod also adds new food options and a new mineral type. If you’re tired of the same weapon choices and want to add some medieval details to your game, this is the mod for you.
Medieval Mobs
Another cool little mod, Medieval Mobs changes the models, behavior, and drops of skeletons and zombies, making them into bandits that can survive in the sun and are a little more dangerous than the base types. As a cool twist, they drop gold coins which can be forged into gold bars when you have enough. This is an especially useful mod if you’re interested in playing a medieval game but don’t want to include fantasy elements.
Servers
MassiveCraft
A huge, popular, and well-supported server, MassiveCraft is a great go-to for anyone who wants to play in a medieval world – especially if you’re interested in roleplay and PvP. It’s got a great texture pack and has some useful mods attached that add depth and functionality to the base game. It also has a really deep RPG framework, adding races, classes, and factions that add fun and complexity to your Minecraft experience.
Ravand.org
Whether you’re looking for a PvP experience, want to play a Minecraft MMO, or are a serious builder, Ravand.org has something to suit your needs. Home to the creator of the awesome resource pack of the same name, Ravand.org is a server that’s built around a medieval idea, and has focused a lot of its energy in that area. It also has one of the most dedicated communities of builders and an area of the server devoted to making the best medieval builds, so if building is your thing, this is definitely the place for you.
What medieval mods do you use? Share in the comments below!
