*UPDATE*

Mojang has responded to our message regarding the graphics pack. Sadly though, they have stated that they can not comment on the Super Duper Graphics Pack or any information surrounding it.

Original Post –

During E3 2017, Minecraft announced a new “graphics pack” for the Minecraft players using Xbox, Windows 10, Phone, or VR. The pack would basically be something that the normal PC version of Minecraft had access to for quite some time already, shaders.

In Minecraft, shaders allowed the user to change the entirety of the lighting effects within the game. Shadows would be deeper and darker, the Sun would light up the world with an array of new effects, water would look almost realistic (compared to the rest of the game’s aesthetic at least), and rain would leave a the ground wet and somewhat reflective.

While different shader packs give different styles of effects, many players really enjoyed the increase in graphical fidelity that they gave the game.

Well, players not using what is now referred to as ‘Minecraft Java’ were finally going to get their taste of shaders thanks to the release of the ‘Minecraft Super Duper Graphics Pack’.

There was never a set release date for the pack, but its scheduled time period was during Fall of 2017. It never came.

Eventually, Mojang would announce a delay for the graphics pack, pushing it back to Winter 2017.

Then again to late Spring 2018.

Minecraft developer here. The Graphics Team is still hard at work on this (it ended up being a ton more work than initially anticipated). The graphics part of our engine was quite honestly simply not built for this, and when we tried to put all the new features in piece by piece things went bad. Performance, even on the Xbox One X, was between bad and inconsistent during all the internal play sessions we had. It will come, but we don’t have a date yet. The gameplay team has been hard at work on the Update Aquatic, while the rest of the Engine team has been working on the Switch release alongside fixing performance issues on Xbox One. Those fixes are much closer than Super Duper 🙂

There is currently no date or time period for when the pack will be released.

For some time, the option to pre-order the graphics pack was available on Amazon, but as of now the option to pre-order has been removed.

Some of those who pre-ordered the pack have taken to the Amazon review section to voice their anger at the lack of communication Mojang has had with players.

For now, some players are hoping for a 2019 release date, but for all we know that could be as likely as the 2018 release window was.

We’ve reached out to Mojang for comment, but have not received any reply.