‘Minecraft’ Xbox One Holiday Edition Now Available

Minecraft fans can now celebrate the holidays with the Minecraft Xbox One Edition Holiday Pack, a special software bundle which includes seven DLCs to enjoy. Players of the Xbox One console’s version of Minecraft can now pick up the full game plus a variety of fan-favorite downloadable content for $29.99 on the Xbox Games Store.

It’s a great time to be a Minecraft fan. The ever-popular game continues to expand and grow. Minecraft‘s rather self-explanatory slogan is “build, play, explore,” showing that the only limit is the player’s imagination, and the best-selling game on Xbox 360 is now available to purchase in the Holiday bundle on the Xbox One. Minecraft creator Markus “Notch” Persson was recently able to sell the game to Microsoft for a whopping $2.5 billion last year thanks to the stunning popularity of the open world creative building franchise.

Microsoft is clearly tempting Xbox users this holiday season. In addition to being able to play with up to three friends in split-screen and up to eight in online mode, the bundle also includes the full game plus seven DLCs, namely the Minecraft Fantasy Adventure Pack, the Festive Mash-up, the Battle & Beasts Skin Pack, the Halo Mash-up, the Minecraft Natural Texture Pack, the Minecraft City Texture Pack, and the Battle & Beasts 2 Skin Pack.

This release comes hot on the heels of Minecraft: Story Mode’s Episode Three being released by the reliable Telltale Games. This installment allows players to experience a complex story within the game, and features some fantastic voice talent.

The DLCs in the Holiday Pack will allow the player greater ability to customize the in-game world. The Festive Mash-up DLC comes with a seasonally appropriate winter-themed texture pack, new skins, new music, and a “festive world,” which includes Santa and snow textures. The Fantasy Adventure Pack offers new skins and textures, including medieval knights, castles, brighter colors, weapons, armor and monsters. New stone, grass, tree and water textures also enhance the appeal of this DLC. The Natural Texture and City Texture DLCs also add new appearances to buildings and nature, giving more shape and color to the world around you and opening up new possibilities for architectural design. The two Battle & Beasts DLCs bring more animals, warriors, wizards and mammals to gameplay, allowing more customization for the look of your character.

The Xbox One Edition Holiday Pack also comes with the Minecraft-Halo mash-up that came with much fanfare to the Xbox and other platforms earlier this year. This one includes not only skins and textures from Halo adapted to Minecraft, but includes classic Halo music and an entire Halo-themed world within Minecraft for fans of both franchises to enjoy.

Though not included in the Holiday Pack for the Xbox One, Minecraft has also come out with three Star Wars packs that contain skins for numerous Star Wars characters, including ones from the original trilogy, the prequels and Star Wars Rebels. The most recent third one contains 52 skins from the movies. Other releases of interest include the Halloween Mash-up and Greek Mythology texture packs, each with new unique themes, textures for blocks and new skins for characters.

All of the DLCs mentioned in this article can be bought for both the Xbox One and the Xbox 360 as well as other consoles.

If you’ll be playing Minecraft this holiday season, there are plenty of new ways to experience it on the Xbox One.

[Photo by Christian Petersen/Getty Images]