There are many unique and engaging qualities of Minecraft that draw in a broad player base from first-time gamers to the most veteran of fans, owing to its initial simplicity and calmness all the way up to its hidden complexity and inferred lore. Though many Minecraft spin-offs continue to emerge from Minecraft: Dungeons to its upcoming Minecraft: Legends, it is the original Minecraft that continues to be the best-selling game of all time. One major reason that this game remains a mainstay of most players' repertoire of favorite games is the ever-growing range of biomes, creatures, resources, and more.
One addition to Minecraft's expansive roster that is long overdue is pirates. They make perfect sense when considering certain elements of Minecraft that point towards their existence, such as buried treasure, and implementing pirates into the game would actually be fairly straightforward due to much of the content already available. Beyond this, pirates would add versatility and variety to certain biomes and incentivize players to more openly explore the overworld.
How Pirates Could Work
To some extent, pirates should have always been a part of Minecraft. The simple fact that there are frequent shipwrecks to loot and maps to buried treasure indicates that someone was sailing the seas, so the introduction of pirates can help explain the abundance of shipwrecks, with opposing pirates sinking one another. Mojang could treat pirates like pillagers, making them permanently hostile. Alternatively, they could take inspiration from Piglins, being neutral mobs that attack players who open chests or fulfill other special conditions.
Structures generated for the pirates would likely include fully formed pirate ships, loosely inspired by the established shipwrecks, and would spawn in Minecraft ocean and beach biomes, perhaps with increased frequency the further away from land the player is. Though these boats would likely not move, Mojang could use chains and an anvil to make immobile boats appear anchored. After all, it wouldn't be the first instance in which certain blocks or items have been used in inventive ways to achieve a certain look.
Moreover, a significant number of items and mobs could become associated with the pirates. Since parrots already exist and are frequently associated with pirates, then seagulls might be the next addition to ocean and beach biomes mobs and could help point players toward land or ships. In addition to this, Minecraft items such as spyglasses and chest boats fit the pirate aesthetic, but more items could be added to expand on the concept. Cannons and cannonballs, for example, would be useful for both hostile pirates and players.
Will Minecraft Add Pirates?
If players are desperate for pirates to be in Minecraft, then there are actually mods available to achieve just that, but currently pirates aren't known as planned additions to the base game. However, this isn't to say that Mojang won't consider adding them. New content is always being added to Minecraft, and sometimes fans can influence Mojang's plans, such as in Minecraft mob votes.
Concepts that were initially mods are now officially part of Minecraft, meaning that should there be sufficient interest for pirates, it could motivate Mojang to seriously consider adding them. An example of this comes from parrots themselves, which appeared as a mod first before being implemented into the main game. If parrots can be added, then pirates can too. The only real obstacles to pirates being added would be the amount of effort Mojang is willing to put into incorporating pirates into the game and whether pirates are a more worthwhile addition to the game than other future features.
Minecraft is available now for Mobile, PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.