Each game of Minecraft might be different, but the best Minecraft mods go one step further in providing a different experience to this now 12-year-old game. There’s a mod for everyone who loves this sandbox game, whether you’re into creative building, terrifying survival, or speedrunning its story. With this Mojang classic, you can make it even better on PC by changing the interface and adding tools that will aid your exploration.
The following list includes some of today’s most popular Minecraft mods. From simple changes to deep, intricate Minecraft mods, you can get lost in them for months. The mods are divided into sections based on what you want to do with the game.
Our pick of the best Minecraft performance mods:
- Optifine/Fastcraft
- Journeymap
- Just Enough Items
- Jade
- Enchantment Descriptions
Here are some of the ultimate Minecraft world mods:
- Twilight Forest
- Biomes O’plenty
- Alex’s Mobs
- Immersive Portals
- RLCraft
- Pixelmon
- SkyFactory 4
- Better Minecraft
And, finally, some of the best Minecraft building and item mods:
- LittleTiles
- Chisel
- FramedBlocks
- Decocraft
- Bibliocraft
- Pam’s Harvestcraft 2
Optifine / Fastcraft
Make Minecraft look incredible with the essential Optifine, which adds support for HD textures and more control over graphical options. You’ll likely need Optifine installed before you can run Minecraft shaders, but even on its own it provides dynamic lighting, improved textures, and a performance boost. Optifine should be fine on most PC setups, but if you’re playing on a potato, grab Fastcraft instead – it significantly improves performance on lower-end machines, particularly with lots of Minecraft mods installed.
Journeymap
Everyone likes to know where they’re going. Journeymap maps your world as you explore, lets you mark waypoints of interest, and can even warn you when mobs are sneaking up behind you. View the resulting map in-game as a minimap, in fullscreen, or even in an external web browser.
Just Enough Items
If you need an antidote to the pain of alt-tabbing to a wiki while playing Minecraft, then turn to Just Enough Items (or JEI). It lets you look up the recipe for any item from any installed Minecraft mod through a nifty interface on Minecraft’s inventory screen.
Jade
Jade is a super helpful Minecraft mod, particularly when you have a range of texture or world-changing mods installed alongside it. Not only does Jade tell you which item you are looking at, but it provides additional information, too, like the contents of a chest or any status effects applied to a mob.
Enchantment descriptions
For those who need a reminder of what the Minecraft enchantments do at a glance, the Enchantment Descriptions mod gives you the description of any enchanted book in your inventory. This mod also supports modded enchantments and will display these tooltips in over 13 different languages.
Twilight Forest
This gorgeous mod adds a new portal and an entirely new dimension: the Twilight Forest. You’ll need to play as normal until you’ll gathered the materials to build the portal above, but then you can completely overhaul your Minecraft experience with new dungeons, mythical creatures, and so much more.
Biomes O’Plenty
If there aren’t enough vanilla Minecraft Biomes to keep you busy, Biomes O’Plenty adds masses of new biomes across both the Overworld and the Nether – from Alps to Wasteland, and everything in between. It also adds a little more variety to tools, armour, food, colour, and adds a few extra blocks to build with.
Alex’s mobs
We know from Minecraft now-annual mob vote that players are always clamouring for additional animals, monsters, and humanoids to be added to vanilla Minecraft. Well, you don’t need to wait for the next big Minecraft update with Alex’s mobs‘ 84 new animals. This mix of both realistic and fictional creatures includes kangaroos, tigers, and something called a bone serpent – and each of them has its own unique mechanic and drops.
Immersive Portals
It can be pretty scary throwing yourself head first into a Minecraft Nether or end Portal without knowing what’s on the other side. Thankfully, Immersive Portals changes that, by showing you exactly what awaits on the other side.
RLCraft
Still the most popular Minecraft mod of all time, RLCraft plays into the world’s love of fantasy with dragons, fairies, and more added to your Minecraft world. But that’s not all. In addition to the range of terrifying and adorable new mobs, RLCraft features new biomes, new auto-generated structures like towers and dungeons, and an all-new survival experience.
Pixelmon
If there’s anything better than one of the most popular game franchise’s of all time, it’s two of the most popular game franchise’s of all time coming together. Pixelmon does just that, bringing all your favourite Pokemon to the world of Minecraft.
SkyFactory 4
SkyFactory is one of the most classic Minecraft mods, and is based on the popular SkyBlock map. Combining the original SkyBlock experience with industrial autonomy, SkyFactory 4 lets you lose on a floating Minecraft world full of unique devices and machines, new crops, and even magic.
Better MC
The makers vision of what Minecraft should have been, Better MC adds multiple bosses, mobs, crops, items, dimensions, quests and more to give you the comprehensive Minecraft experience you never knew you needed. We’re not saying we don’t still love the base game, but Minecraft will never be the same again once you’ve tried Better MC.
Vault Hunters
Finally, our last pick of the list is Vault Hunters, another completely game-changing modpack. Made by popular Minecraft YouTuber and Hermit Iskall85, Vault Hunters takes you deep into thrilling, procedurally-generated vaults, in which you have to battle your way to valuable loot, armour and weapons. There’s a fully-playable story to Vault Hunters, too, with an end goal of combining its 25 artefacts to unlock one final, deadly vault.
Little Tiles
To kick off the building mod section of this guide, we’re going right in at the deep end. While the limitations of Minecraft’s blocks may be part of the fun for many, LittleTiles allows those who want more flexibility the chance to build with pixel-sized tiles. With LittleTiles, therefore, the only limitation is your imagination. This mod’s teeny blocks can even be used to make moveable parts, twinkling lights, and so much more.
Chisel
Chisel gives you access to, well, a chisel, which allows you to change the texture of any block. With a huge range of industrial-style textures to choose from, Chisel allows players to build the most complex and intricate of mechanical builds.
FramedBlocks
Cubes are great and all, but occasionally you want a slope, right?FramedBlocks adds a ridiculous number of new shapes to the Minecraft inventory for you to work into your unique builds. Even better though, is that they also have customisable textures. Simply right click on your slope, slab or step with any other Minecraft block, and it will take on that texture. Want a flower pot made of wool? You got it.
Decocraft
If you’d like a bit more variety when it comes to decorating your Minecraft house, Decocraft is the mod for you. It adds around 3,000 new customisation items, including craftable chairs, tables, bowls, bottles, lamps, stuffed toys, beer kegs, and even a kitchen sink. To keep up to date with all those items, you can join the mod’s official Discord.
Bibliocraft
Bibliocraft also offers a bunch of aesthetically-pleasing blocks, but these ones come with their own functionality. Based originally around customisable bookshelves, Bibliocraft also offers display cases and shelves let you show off your armour and trophies, while a printing press lets you copy in-game books. It even adds a monocle for the distinguished Minecrafters amongst you.
Pam’s HarvestCraft 2
Not so much a mod for building, but one that does introduce new items to the menu, Pam’s Harvestcraft 2 brings some serious variation to your Minecraft diet. A follow up to the original Pam’s Harvestcraft – which can still be used in Minecraft versions up to 1.12 – PH2 is split into four separate mods: Food Core, Crops, Trees, and Food Extended. The end result is a Minecraft diet that’s equal parts lavish and balanced. If you want to make this a necessity rather than just a fun extension to vanilla Minecraft, use it alongside Hunger Overhaul and The Spice of Life, which both punish your poor eating habits.
With all those mods to choose from, hopefully you’re ready to get lost in Minecraft all over again. If you need a handy tool to manage your mods, our guide to installing and using Minecraft Forge will help you organise your modding needs. If that’s still not enough diversity from the vanilla game, check out our list of the best crafting games on PC.