Devblog #3 – Help Us Test the New Skyblock!

In our last devblog, we gave you a first look at the upcoming Skyblock update and explained which changes are necessary and why. In this post, we want to give you a complete overview of all the new features and invite you to try them out for yourself. We will also take a look at the future of Skyblock to help you understand the direction we want to take and share some of the ideas we already have in mind.

A New Start and Tutorial

As already mentioned, this update is primarily aimed at new players. Our Skyblock has more than ten years of history, and with the upcoming update, we want to bring a fresh experience to the game. The entire gameplay has been fundamentally reworked. But it is not just new players who will benefit. Experienced players can also look forward to exciting new features, as fresh faces will bring new life to the economy and trading. It will also be important to get familiar with the new mechanics to stay competitive in the future.

When entering the new Skyblock, you will automatically start on your first tutorial island. There, you will unlock several prebuilt islands one by one. Each island comes with its own set of themed missions that guide you through the basic mechanics and help you get started during your first hours of gameplay. At the center of it all is your island market. This is where not only random traders will appear, but also special ones that are unlocked by completing missions on your island.

The New Gameplay Experience

As already discussed in the last devblog, the island market is at the heart of this update. It replaces the old, repetitive selling system with a more dynamic and modern approach. One of the biggest advantages of the new market stand is that you can no longer rely on trading only your favorite resources. If you focus only on the residents whose requests suit you best, the queue will quickly become blocked – other residents will hold up the process, and your market will become less efficient.

To keep things running smoothly, it pays to engage with a wider variety of resources. Of course, you do not have to farm or produce everything yourself. That is exactly why we introduced the new player trading stands a few weeks ago. They allow you to easily exchange large quantities of materials with other players.

Unlike the previous system, there is now real demand for many different resources. Materials like wood, wool, honey, and milk are becoming much more valuable. To make everything work together more smoothly, we have also reworked several game mechanics. The goal is not only to better connect them with the new market system but also to make them easier to understand for new players.

New Cobblestone Generator

With the update, the cobblestone generator works fundamentally differently than before. While you can still create basic cobblestone by letting water flow onto lava, ores will no longer appear during this process. Instead, the new generator is much more convenient to use. It can be placed and removed easily, making it more beginner-friendly and allowing us to introduce upgrade options. The generator now comes with its own small skill tree. The more stone you mine, the higher the generator’s level becomes. These levels can be used to unlock upgrades such as faster generation speed or a higher chance for specific ores. In addition to the classic cobblestone generator, there are now also generators for deepslate and netherrack.
 

Bringing Spawners Back to Life

From now on, spawners can be reactivated using collected experience levels. However, the type of animal or monster that appears is determined randomly. Looking ahead, we also plan to give you the option to upgrade spawners even further. This will allow you to farm larger amounts of loot without immediately hitting the monster limit on your island.

Candy

Candies have also been reworked. They are designed to improve passive animals such as sheep, bees, chickens, or cows without requiring you to keep large numbers of them on your island. The new candies come with more levels and are much easier to use. When fed to animals, they increase the production speed of resources like wool, honey, milk, or eggs – all of which will become more valuable through the new island market.

Our new Spawn

Of course, a new Skyblock also needs a new spawn area! Our building team has once again done an amazing job creating an immersive and cozy world where you can find all the important hubs away from your island.

At the spawn, you will still find Tom Blocks’ shop. The buyers and sellers are also there, but their selection is now much more limited. Unlike before, only basic materials like dirt or sand are sold. All other resources must be traded with other players or unlocked as you progress through the game. Besides some basic resources, you will also find special items like pipes or candies.

Brand new is the cave where you can revive your spawners. Many familiar features are also back, such as the auction house, Ferdinand Fix, and the fishmonger who will play a much bigger role thanks to new and unique fish trades.

The new spawn also offers plenty of space for future expansions – who knows what else awaits you there?

Island Management

Since Skyblock has been completely redeveloped from the ground up, the island management system has also seen significant changes. We have revamped the menu to make it clearer and more intuitive. At the same time, new features await you, offering even more control and convenience in managing your island.

Multiple Islands

Since every new player now starts with a brand new tutorial island, we have increased the maximum number of islands you can own. From now on, you can have up to seven islands. The number of islands is no longer tied to your rank. You also have the option to buy additional island slots once with rubies and use them flexibly as you wish. Of course, your existing islands will be carried over, and the corresponding slots will be unlocked automatically.

Island Levels

You can now upgrade your island through expansion levels. Each island level expands the world border, giving you more space to build and design. At the same time, your limits are increased – for example, for dropped items or the number of animals and monsters. New is that these limits now apply to the entire island and can be viewed clearly in a dedicated menu. There you can see exactly how many items or creatures are currently on your island, sorted and detailed.

Advanced Permissions

The new permissions are now nested and therefore much more detailed. Instead of just generally determining whether players can use something on your island or not, you can now specify exactly which objects or functions a player is allowed to interact with. There are already over 50 different permission settings available, and we look forward to your feedback to further expand and improve the system.

Public Islands

All players have the option to make their island publicly accessible to offer items and resources for sale or purchase. Instead of using a sign as before, you now travel to other players’ public islands via a balloon pilot. A new search function lets you look for specific islands owned by other players. Public islands can still only be entered if the owner is online or has a Premium+ rank.

Beyond This Update

Where exactly Skyblock will go from here is not yet set in stone and will depend heavily on your feedback. The current trade offerings still follow the classic vanilla Skyblock style, and the traders reflect that as well. However, as Skyblock expands, this will change in the later stages of the game. As you may know, vanilla Skyblock has limited possibilities, and this is exactly where we want to build on by adding new resources, game mechanics, machines, and challenges to create more variety and alternatives beyond just building and trading.

Seasons and Events

With the planned island market and new game loop, we are laying the foundation for regular content in Skyblock. At the start, the island market will have a maximum level of 30. Once this level is reached, no new resources or larger trade offers will be unlocked. While new players will need some time to reach this level, many experienced players will likely get there much faster. Therefore, the new content is initially quite limited for our existing players.

Our goal with this update is to create long-term value and keep Skyblock alive with exciting content for many years to come. Every few months, we plan to increase the max level with major seasonal updates that will shake up the economy and introduce new resources, farms, and traders. Additionally, we can now more easily implement seasonal events where special traders with unique trade requests and rewards appear for special occasions.

Specialization of the Island Market

In the future, we want to give you the ability to customize your island market even more—both visually and in gameplay. We plan to introduce skins and designs for your market stand and trader to give them a unique look. Beyond that, you will be able to influence your trader technically: by giving them special items, you can attract specific trader types and increase the chances of certain trade offers.

Depending on the upgrades and items you unlock for your island market, you can specialize in certain resources and strategically align your farms and production.

More Traders and Rewards

Our traders are currently quite simple, but this will change soon. We plan to make them more exciting and diverse. In the future, you might encounter special traders who challenge you with unusual and sometimes tricky requests. Those who fulfill these requests will be rewarded with exclusive items.

For example, a pirate villager might leave behind a treasure chest if you complete their trade. These items will be collected in the island market until you claim them. This way, we create additional incentives beyond coins and better integrate special items into the gameplay.

More Depth Through Additional Game Mechanics

The new market stand opens up exciting opportunities to better integrate game mechanics like the fishing system. Until now, these features have mostly been side activities that had little impact on the core gameplay aside from some rewards. That is about to change.

In the future, special traders will specifically ask for certain fish like jellyfish, flounder, or other sea creatures. This will give these mechanics more importance and integrate them sensibly into the economy.

And this is just the beginning: our goal is to extend this principle to many more new mechanics in the future.

How Can You Test?

On Monday, July 28, 2025, our test phase will likely begin for all premium players!
You will get the chance to import your islands and try out the new Skyblock.

This “Skyblock update” is a completely redeveloped game mode. While you can transfer your existing islands and we support most of the familiar features for now, Skyblock is a full reboot both technically and content-wise. We kindly ask for your understanding that not everything will work perfectly at launch. Some visual elements, configurations, and translations are also not final during the test and will be improved continuously. We appreciate your patience during this phase.

⚠️ Important: Progress made during the test will not be saved.
This is purely an opportunity to get familiar with the new mechanics, provide feedback, and test everything.
So grab your tools and help us make the new Skyblock even better!