Why Optifine may be unavailable for Minecraft 1.21 at launch

Any video game available on PCs is bound to be touched by the modding community, and with over a hundred thousand mods available, it is safe to say that Minecraft has been thoroughly transformed by them. The community has created mods for all kinds of enhancements. However, the most popular ones are visual mods.

Out of the huge list of Minecraft visual mods, Optifine stands out as one of the most popular and stable options. With the release date for the Tricky Trials update approaching, many players are looking forward to trying the new features with shaders. However, that may not be possible on the launch date.

In this article, we delve into why Optifine will most likely not be released for the upcoming Minecraft 1.21 update at launch and the alternative that should be available much sooner.

Note: Some aspects of this article are subjective and reflect the opinions of the writer

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Minecraft 1.21 Optifine will most likely be delayed

Minecraft with Astralex shaders (Image via Mojang)

Minecraft Optifine is a visual mod that enhances the game's visual quality or improves its performance. It is widely popular for its shader support, which uses external files to transform the appearance of everything in the title.

However, Optifine will likely not be available for the Minecraft 1.21 Tricky Trials update at launch because the mod has not yet been released for version 1.20.6. Only a preview update for this version is available.

The developers of the mod have always taken their time to release updated versions for the latest game updates. Therefore, the historical rate of release of the Optifine mod also hints at a delay for the upcoming 1.21 update.

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Optifine alternatives

Iris shaders mod's shader selection screen (Image via Mojang)

Given the popularity of the shader feature, it is surprising how few shader-supporting mods are available. However, a stable and reliable option aside from Optifine is Iris Shaders.

Based on its stability and the developers' activeness, this mod deserves more attention. Its developers are so active that they even release versions for snapshot updates.

For those interested in trying out Iris Shaders, here are the detailed steps for easily installing this mod:

Iris shaders installer (Image via Mojang)

Step 1: Download the Iris Shaders Universal .jar file from the mod's official website.

Step 2: Right-click on the downloaded .jar file, select "Open with," and choose Java Platform SE Binary.

Step 3: Select the game version you want to play with shaders.

Step 4: Ensure the default game directory is correct. If it is not, change it to the directory where the game is installed. Then, click on the Install button.

The Iris Shaders installer will quickly create a new installation of the selected game version with the mod. Players can launch this new installation from the official game launcher and navigate to the video settings to enable shaders.

Since the developers of this mod release a test version for snapshots literally hours after the snapshot is released, users can expect an update for the mod to be available for Minecraft 1.21 on the launch date, or at the latest, the following day.

However, these quick releases can sometimes come at the cost of stability and bugs, and players should keep this in mind.