Best Minecraft Mods: Minecraft is a wonderfully open-ended game on its own, but mods are indeed where the game shines. As one of the most popular games that have ever existed, there are a lot of great mods out there. It can be too much to parse through, so we’ve deduced a list of the best.
We’ve updated our list of mods for 2024 with the most popular links and latest versions of the best Minecraft mods. We’ve organized them by the latest version of Minecraft they support, so you can begin picking mods that will all run on your preferred version. Many of these great mods are compatible with Minecraft 1.15, so that’s an outstanding category to start with!
Related: How to Install OptiFine
1. OptiFine – Minecraft version: 1.7.2 – 1.14.4
Minecraft doesn’t scale too well to the endowment of fast or slow machines. It runs surprisingly badly on low-end laptops, and a high-end rig can’t do much with its extra oomph.
Enter Optifine—a mod that not only makes Minecraft run faster but also looks far better. It supports HD textures, smooth lighting, and more, and framerate doubling is not surprising. It’s one of the first things we normally add when installing Minecraft.
2. Just Enough Items (JEI)
Just Acceptable Items is the successor of the older Not Enough Items mod that lets you search for materials in-game and see all of its recipes.
This is an extra useful tool to have installed alongside any new modpacks you try, helping you learn the recipes for new items you’re not yet familiar with.
3. Here’s What You’re Looking at (HWYLA)
HWYLA is a branch from the old popular utility What Am I Looking At. WAILA is no longer being renewed, so you’ll want to go with HWYLA for the future. Among other things, it shows a tooltip with the name of the block or objects your cursor is pointing at.
It’s a useful utility for exploring a new mod pack if you’re constantly scratching your head wondering what that block you’ve never seen before is.
4. Biomes O’Plenty
Since the Update That Changed the World in late 2013, there’s been a bit more variety in Minecraft worlds. But Biomes O’Plenty adds vastly more—75 to be exact—from brushland and coral beaches, through lavender fields and ominous woods, to tundra and wasteland.
You’ll require to create a new world to use it (make sure to select the ‘Biomes O’Plenty’ world generation option), but it’s worth it to see corners of Minecraft that you’ve never seen before.
5. Engineer’s Tools
Engineer’s Tools is a simple mod that makes mining above and underground way more convenient. The mod’s main focus is a craftablemultitool that combines your pickaxe, wood axe, sheers, and shovel into a single item.
It would be best if you still had the personal tools to craft the multitool, so it’s not so much a cheat as an inventory convenience. It also combines a coal chalk marker that you can use in caves to leave navigational waypoints or mark points of interest.
6. Botania
Some mods add powerful magical items. Others add intricate machinery. Botania adds flowers—but wow, what flowers. Flowers that heal you. Flowers that feed animals. Flowers turn hostile mobs against each other. Flowers that eat cake.
Oh, and did I mention that you’ve can also utilize flowers to create a magical portal to a world of elves? If you want to try something wildly diverse from most other mods, Botania is it.
7. The Lost Cities
Something has ended life as we know it. Houses are in disrepair, and everyone has vanished, or so it seems. The Lost Cities, as the foreboding name implies, spawns you into a city forgotten by time. The goal? See how long you can survive this post-apocalyptic wasteland without submitting to death.
If you fancy taking the remainder one step further, this mod also interlinks with the Biomes O Plenty mod, meaning you’ll have a lot of stunning new areas to explore alongside the empty cities.
8. Journey Map
Maps are famous for trying to keep a rough idea of where you are or where you’re heading. That said, there’s always room for improvement. Assume Google Maps, only for Minecraft, and you’ll have a pretty good idea of what this mod does.
Specifically, it lets folk view a more real-time map in-game, and on the mini-map, as well as being worthy to view the map online via a web browser. If you’re charting your next journey, and it’s operating to take you far, far away from the sanctity of your home base, then this mod is a must.
9. Instant Massive Structures
Okay, okay, so this one may be cheating. We’ve all seen monstrous builds online which make our 5×5 dirt house pail in connection. But what happens if you want to turn the tables? What happens if you wish to an enormous city in a matter of seconds? That’s where the Instant Structures mod comes in.
Cycle through the inventive menu, drop a block, right-click it, and a building will magically spawn. Structures range from castles to houses, all the way to tram stops. Yeah, assured, it’s technically cheating, but we won’t tell anyone.
10. Rope Bridge Mod
Do you know what’s annoying? When you’re at the top of a mountain and see something interesting on an adjacent peak. No one likes the feeling of having to trudge down a hill only to stumble your way up another directly after clumsily.
What this mod does is cut out the in-between moments. Namely, point, click, and a rope bridge will magically appear to offer up a link between the two ends. Yes, it’s for lazy people like us. Feel free to judge.
11. Iron Chests 2
Further storage mods, but this time focused on the early-game. Iron Chests lets you update wooden chests to hold more stuff. In the long run, you’ll probably still want an Applied Energetics system, but this makes the early part of the game so much more pleasant.
