Minecraft is a game that allows you to create whatever your heart desires, but you’re still limited by the blocks that are on offer. We’ve all been in a situation where no block looks quite right for what we want, so we have to resort to the closest approximation of the style. There is a solution to this problem, and that is texture packs.
Also known as resource packs, these completely overhaul the textures on every block in the game, as well as some of the sound design and animations. It can make Minecraft look however you want, no matter the world seed. Maybe you want a medieval look, a futuristic look, or something completely wild and imaginative. All of it is possible with texture packs.
How to install a texture pack – Minecraft
If you are playing on PC with Java Edition:
Download the texture pack from the relevant site.
Go into ‘Resource Packs’ in ‘Settings’.
Click the ‘Resource Packs Folder’ button.
Drop the downloaded texture pack file in the folder.
Select it from the in-game ‘Resource Packs’ menu.
If you are playing on PC with Bedrock Edition or on consoles:
Head to the Marketplace.
Search for the texture pack you want.
Pay for the pack and download it.
Go into ‘Settings’ and select ‘Global Resources’.
Click your pack under ‘My Pack’s to activate it.
Faithful
As the name suggests, Faithful is a pack that retains the original Minecraft style. As much as the low-fi graphics are part of the game’s charm, you might prefer them to look a little neater, and that’s what Faithful does. It takes all of the game’s low-resolution textures and increases the quality until they’re looking nice and crisp.
If you’ve got lots of wonderful creations that you want to see just a little clearer, then this is the perfect pack for you. Completely changing the style could wreck the careful construction work you’ve done, but using Faithful guarantees they’ll look so much better.
Stratum
Minecraft is far from a realistic game, but plenty of players have the ingenuity required to make modern-looking buildings out of fairly simple materials. These creations could look even better if the textures were as realistic as they could possibly be. Stratum is still in development, but even in early access it is the best pack for realism currently available.
It’ll require a more powerful PC than most packs, but it’s worth it for the quality on display. What’s more is it’s designed to work in tandem with the Continuum shader pack, at which point you’ll barely recognise the game as Minecraft. As it is in early access, you’ll have to pay to use it with Java Edition, but it’s a pack worth paying for.
Harkenburg City
Packs that add realism make for a truly immersive experience, but they’re not always the best for your creations. If, for example, you want to create a modern city, then there are still lots of features missing from a realism pack. Metal fences, vents, traffic lights – all of these things are essential for a city, but virtually impossible in Minecraft.
Harkenburg City’s sole focus is on letting you create a modern city in Minecraft’s default style. Your roads now have the texture of tarmac, and you can insert proper road lines onto them without them looking weird and chunky. Windows appear to be properly built-in rather than a slab of glass hanging in the wall. Most importantly, there are lots of different colours and styles of brick to choose from, so you can have all the variety you want.
RTX Ray Tracing Pack
The Minecraft RTX demo was a fantastic showcase of what the very best graphics can do to Minecraft. Unfortunately, not everyone has the high-end PC required to run ray tracing, but you can still get part way there. That demo didn’t just use ray tracing to look as good as it did, there was a texture pack placed on top that made things such as stone and grass look even more realistic.
That texture pack can be downloaded separately, without the need to run ray tracing, which makes it a great realism texture pack that is available on all platforms. Even if you have a low-end PC you can install shader packs to boost the quality of your world’s lighting instead, and they should pair well with this texture pack.
John Smith Legacy
An all-time classic pack that can be traced all the way back to Minecraft version 1.0, John Smith Legacy is still alive and well today, being regularly updated for the newest versions of the game. This was one of the first packs to go for a medieval style, being made popular by Minecraft YouTube videos and it’s definitely still one of the best. It has a unique aged quality to it that other, similar packs are lacking.
What’s truly a mark of quality is that even the fantasy blocks such as Netherrack or the Enchanting Table feel true to this medieval style. So many other packs stray a little too far into fantasy to work, but John Smith Legacy keeps everything grounded. If you want to take it even further, there’s a 3D models addon that adds depth to things like Rails or Redstone Lamps.
MineBricks
The easiest way to describe Minecraft to your grandparents has always been to call it a ‘virtual Lego game’, but anyone who’s played it will tell you that’s not strictly true. However, when you have the MineBricks texture pack installed, you can fool yourself into thinking it really is a Lego game.
The novelty of seeing a completely Lego version of Minecraft is enough to make this one worth downloading, but there are a bunch of little details that make it one of the best. The sound of footsteps changes to the little clink of Lego pieces hitting each other, the way grass has the little connector bits poking out of the top, and so much more. It doesn’t have everything retextured yet, but it’s clear this pack was made with a lot of love.
Woodpecker
Turning up the realism, or creating a specific setting in Minecraft is fun, but sometimes all you want is the world to feel a bit friendlier. Woodpecker is the perfect pack if that’s what you’re after, as it uses saturated colours and an exaggerated cartoony style to bring a happy atmosphere to Minecraft.
Everything looks friendlier. Pumpkins get a wonky little smile, animals get colour variations and happier faces, and even boring old stone feels just a bit more lively. If you’re building a fairytale village, an enchanted cove, or just want to perk up your world a tad, Woodpecker will do the job.
Retro NES
Minecraft already has a retro aesthetic, but one clever player clearly looked at it and decided it could go older. The result is the Retro NES pack that downgrades Minecraft’s already simplistic graphics to the style of NES games, which means bright, solid colours and a much lower resolution.
It’s not a perfect recreation, and the textures are still higher quality than the real NES, but the feel of those games is captured perfectly; it’s not like an open-world sandbox could be made on an NES, after all. Shadows and textures feel flat in just the right way, and you’ve got to squint at more detailed blocks to work out what they are. It’s more of a novelty pack than one you’d play with all the time, but it’s a lot of fun to wander around with it active.
Barebones
Another downgrade pack, rather than cutting out some details like Retro NES, Barebones cuts out as much detail as it possibly can. Most blocks are a single solid colour, and those that aren’t, use as little detail as possible. It brings the style closer to a lot of the promotional art for major Minecraft updates.
This kind of minimalist texture pack has always been popular, the OCD pack is a very old one that does a similar thing, but Barebones tries to push it even further. It has the benefit of cutting down on graphical resources too, meaning even the lowest of low-end PCs should be able to run Minecraft with this pack active.
PureBDcraft
Another pack that can trace its origins all the way back to Minecraft 1.0, PureBDcraft, also known as Sphax is the undisputed king of texture pack and resource packs. Their comic book style is unmatched in the genre, using sharp shapes and simple shading to make everything pop with a unique aura.
What’s more, is how customisable it is. Not only can you select lots of different levels of quality, but there are a near-endless amount of add-ons. Some of these add-ons modify the vanilla textures, such as adding 3D elements, while others support textures for the best Minecraft mods out there. Your experience with PureBDcraft can be exactly what you want it to be, which is something not many other packs can offer.
Written by Ryan Woodrow on behalf of GLHF.
