Should you play vanilla Minecraft first or directly jump into the game with mods?

Minecraft is a sandbox game with an underlying original story and can also be heavily modded. As soon as the game was out for the public in 2010, people started making mods, resource packs, and shaders. Countless third-party features have since been made that can be easily downloaded and installed.

That said, the big question is whether a beginner should play the vanilla version first or directly go for mods. Simply put, they should play the base game first. However, mods aren't to be fully ignored either. Keep reading to know more.

Note: This article is subjective and solely reflects the writer's opinion.

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Minecraft should be played with some essential mods but not game-changing ones at first

Importance of essential performance mods in Minecraft

The base game should be played first but with some essential mods (Image via Mojang Studios || CurseForge)

Minecraft's underlying story and its vanilla experience are still loved by millions of people across the world. The simple blocky nature of the textures, quickly progressing through the wood, stone, and iron ages, with no help from a minimap, made the sandbox so popular in the first place.

The vanilla experience is to just install the game from a device's store app and jump into a new world. However, certain aspects of the game can make it difficult to run even on capable devices.

Since the game's world is nearly endless, players can render thousands of chunks by exploring. When loading and unloading these chunks, a device could struggle quite a bit, to a point where lag spikes can be experienced. Hence, the game's bustling modding community has come up with several performance mods that drastically improve the vanilla experience.

These performance mods do not add any new playable features to the game. Rather, they work behind the scenes to improve the chunk rendering system, lighting system, and more.

Some of the most famous ones are Sodium, OptiFine, Entity Culling, Lithium, Clumps, and Better FPS.

Hence, new players can play the sandbox in its vanilla form, but with these essential performance mods to have a much better first experience.

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Vanilla mechanics help players quickly adapt to modded Minecraft

New players can learn about the game mechanics before jumping into the modded game (Image via Mojang Studios || CurseForge)

Another reason why new players should play the vanilla version of the game is for them to get accustomed to its mechanics. Though modded Minecraft can have a lot of different mechanics, some basic ones will most likely not change, like eating speed, movement mechanics, basic combat, and more.

Hence, to get used to the overall environment and gameplay, gamers can first play the base game before adding mods and new features.

For some harder Minecraft modpacks like RLCraft, BetterMinecraft, Artifact Quest, etc., players should be well-versed with the basics to survive and progress.

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Check out other mod and vanilla-related Minecraft articles:

• Minecraft players discuss their favorite mods
• 7 best Minecraft mods that add popular fan-requested features
• Minecraft vanilla's dated game progression still has a special charm