So I’m no stranger to Minecraft, I played heavily in the alpha as I’m sure many here did. Then I played sporadically after it’s official release on PC and then consoles here and there.

Well now I’m in a part of my life where I can have a really dedicated time and space for gaming, and Minecraft for PC (along with realms) is at the top of my list.

The problem is that so much has changed since the last time I’ve really played Minecraft, and there seems to be different versions?

So I’m curious what the community here thinks, as it’s very invested in this franchise. What do you think is the best version of Minecraft for someone in my situation? From what I can see, it seems like the Windows version of Minecraft (written in C I believe) might be the best choice in the long run?

Here is what I’m aiming for:

•Smooth/optimized gameplay. From the little searching I did, it seemed as if the Windows version won in this department, but I couldn’t find much in this regard, but being that it was rewritten in C makes me think this might be true.

•I have no interest in modding the game, with the exception of visual enhancements. I enjoy playing the vanilla mechanics that is provided from the developers, but it’s also nice to bring a different feeling of atmosphere with shaders etc. I read that there is an official shader/ray tracing support on the Windows version of the game, which seemed like a seamless process.

•Stable server/realm play. I just got married, and introduced my wife to Minecraft not long ago and she is hooked, it would be great if we could play together without issue (LAN?) with the option of bringing others into our game.

•Dedicated controller support. This one is big for me actually. Like I said previously, I’ve played many times throughout the years on different hardware and iterations, but my favorite experience was on the X-Box One, purely for the fact that the game controls were designed with the game in mind in all aspects, and it was so smooth, and comfortable. I’m aware there are third party applications for Java, and I’ve tried it, but it’s just not quite the same with how things snap or function when I played it on X-Box One. So one would assume that the Windows version functions much the same, without any third party involvement.

•Longevity. This one is in regards to the different versions, because, it makes me wonder, why would they go through the trouble to recreate such a huge franchise in a different language, and that not be their main version? I think it’s great that it’s available to play on many different devices/hardware/software, but in the back of my mind I wonder if they would ever go exclusive and have one singular version. Whether that be available on all devices or not, I’m curious if there has been any rumors of them doing that, as from a development standpoint it seems it would be much simpler to design for just one version than multiple.