I wasn’t a sports kid growing up—I watched the Phillies, the Eagles, and wrestling. And that was it—I didn’t play sports, other than pick up games here and there, and wasn’t super active until my mid-teens when I got into wrestling beyond watching it. Now, I was an outdoor kid, but I had a fairly split time of exploring the outdoors with friends and sitting around playing video games with friends. There are so many memories I have of sitting with friends playing Mario Kart, Golden Eye, and so many others. While most of that was regulated to summers and/or weekends, once technology allowed it, we’d play games like Baldur’s Gate, Diablo, and World of Warcraft online with each other. While all those games have continued to come out with sequels or new iterations and are popular in their own right, Minecraft has taken the world by storm! How many YouTubers have gotten their start playing Minecraft? This leads to today’s game promo.
Annihilation, a Minecraft game
Disclaimer: Must own Minecraft Java Edition to play! If you don’t have it, you can’t play
A unique epic team-based battleground mode that pits 4 teams against each other. Destroy other team’s nexus’ while defending your own, work together and play as many unique classes. Annihilate or be annihilated!
Annihilation is a team-based PvP game mode with four teams: Red, Blue, Yellow, and Green. The goal of your team is to eliminate the nexuses of the other three teams while defending your own. Each team has a quadrant on the map where they can assemble supplies, construct defenses, and do other things. When your team is the last to have a nexus, you win. The game is split into five phases, each lasting 10 minutes.
The Nexus is the game’s most significant block. Each Nexus only has 75 hit points when it first starts, and each time one HP is removed during mining. When mined, it emits a loud anvil sound at the base or, if you are not close enough, a light note block sound, alerting the team that their nexus is being attacked.
A team’s members will no longer respawn when their Nexus is destroyed. The surviving team members can continue to attack and take out your nexus because they will play the game until they die.
- Phase 1: The game begins! Players spawn at their team’s base. The Nexus cannot be damaged.
- Phase 2: The Nexus can now be damaged.
- Phase 3: Diamonds spawn in the middle of the map. Witches also spawn within each team quadrant.
- Phase 4: The Boss Portal spawns, allowing the Boss Mob to be slain for a special team reward! Blaze powder also becomes available in the shop.
- Phase 5: Each nexus will now take double the damage.
- The game continues with Phase 5 until only one team is left!
Key Features in Annihilation:
- Ender Furnace: The Ender Furnace is a special furnace that only you can access and is located in your base. It has particles around it similar to an Ender Chest along with a message when you open it up. Each team has only one, but only your team’s Ender Furnace works as an Ender Furnace. It also smelts items 20% faster than regular furnaces.
- Boss Buff: Earned by killing the Boss Mob. Once claimed, everyone on your team receives one, giving them access to a special shop. This shop contains unique items such as armor, swords, bows, potions, and more.
- Nether Portals: Used to change your class in-game. One or two of these portals are located in every base, however, only your team’s portal can be used.
- Combat NPC: Respawn where you log out. When leaving a game with /hub, /al, or /logout, you will rejoin in the same location where you logged out. If you do not use /logout, an NPC will spawn for 15 seconds that enemies can kill, take your loot, and cause you to respawn at your base.
- The Void: Instead of having a world border or wall around the map, Annihilation has a void surrounding each map. Falling in the void will eventually result in you dying. Hitting your enemies in the void is a common strategy to kill them.
- Enchanted Golden Apple: When consumed, provides Absorption IV (2:00), Regeneration III (0:30), Fire Resistance (5:00), and Resistance I (3:00). Limited to 3 Enchanted Golden Apples within 3 minutes, after which a 2-minute cooldown starts in which the player cannot eat another Enchanted Golden Apple.
Minecraft is a game that I only started to grasp the fun of a few years ago when my oldest kid started to play. Even then, the few times we play, it’s just the standard Xbox One (for all or whatever cross communicates with the PC version) version of the game. And we’re just building houses and such—I’ve never really did a deep dive into the world of Minecraft as I have with other games. Even when I sit down with my kids and they’re watching Preston and/or Brianna play Minecraft, I never really saw the appeal (though, that may be because it feels like an act vs. actual fun time game playing). But, watching Shotbow Network‘s trailer for Annihilation above, I can see just how diverse and fun Minecraft can be.
Annihilation is just one of several games the network has on their site for Minecraft. You can play using the IP PLAY.SHOTBOW.NET and find more information on their official website. Get more involved by joining their Discord community, following them on Twitter and Instagram, or giving them a like on Facebook. If you follow them on Twitter, be sure to check out the giveaway they have going on and win yourself a GOLD RANK!
First and foremost, Kev is a dad to three wonderful children. He’s also an uber Kevin Smith fan (all Smith’s movies are worth a watch, even Yoga Hosers) who has cried during Kermit’s monologue in The Muppets and once owned two VHS copies of Spice World. He loves all pop culture, particularly the MCU and Star Wars. The Evil Dead franchise is his favorite horror franchise, though the original Scream is his favorite scary movie. He bleeds Eagle’s green in the (suburbs of the) greatest city on Earth, Philadelphia. Go Birds!