Minecraft celebrates the New Year with Axolotl Islands map

A new year means new content, and Minecraft is celebrating 2022 with a fresh challenge map. Axolotl Islands is the latest marketplace creation to get the spotlight from developer Mojang.

As detailed in the announcement, Axolotl Islands is the creation of Tetrascape, and it sends you to the titular islands to save the salamanders from encroaching super-slimes. To do this, you’ll have to explore the new map, use your antidote gun to cure all the slimes you find, and solve any puzzles you come across. You can see all of that in action in the trailer below.

Saving the axolotls is something Tetrascape cares about outside of Minecraft too. “There are only around 1,000 left in the wild and every little thing counts,” the creative group said. “Let’s do what we can to help and let this map be a motivator!” Axolotl Islands: Slime Machine is a free download for Minecraft: Bedrock Edition, if you want to do your (virtual) part.

The next Minecraft Championship Event is on the horizon for 2022, but we don’t know when it’ll take place just yet since organizer NoxCrew is on a holiday break. There’s plenty of other content to get into in the meantime. If you’re interested in more animals beyond the little axolotl, we can teach you how to breed pandas.