Minecraft — great on its own, better with add-ons. Thanks to the robust and incredible creative community, avid Minecrafters have thousands upon thousands of different plugins, mods, minigames, servers, maps and other content that we can play with when we get bored of the vanilla grind.

Minecraft is one of the most popular games in the world today, and it’s no wonder. With its flexible and replayable gameplay, it’s a treasure trove for all sorts of gamers. Whether you like braving the dangerous dark deep in the mine in search for the shiniest ores, or if you spend most of your days relaxing in fields of wheat, you can enjoy Minecraft at your own pace and in your own way.

Inevitably, however, each and every player hits the point where vanilla Minecraft becomes predictable and, perhaps, even boring. Even with the content – packed updates that Mojang pushes out every so often, after all, there is only so much you can do in Minecraft, especially if you’ve been playing the game for years. Minecraft’s saving grace in this aspect, however, is its amazing moddability — it has perhaps one of the biggest modding libraries and communities of any video game, with thousands of mods and mod packs available with a single click on dozens of different launchers.

As with any video game community, the modders out there are vastly creative, with fun and passionate ideas that surpass our wildest imaginings. If you’re new to the Minecraft modding community, you’re in for a treat. The mods on the market do everything, quite literally, from adding dungeons and dragons, to overhauling weaponry crafting into a literal forging system, to introducing nuclear reactors to Minecraft, to adding thousands of new decorative items.

Minecraft mods can introduce new blocks, foods, mechanics, recipes, quests, models and mobs — all at the click of a button once you’ve got the installation process down. Of course, while you can certainly venture into modded Minecraft with your guns blazing, and put together your favorite mods, I’d highly recommend going with a modpack, such as those in this Top 5 Featured  Minecraft Modpacks on CurseForge 2021.

Or, if you already know what kind of modpacks you like, you can refer to a modpack list like this one! Today, we’re going to cover the Top 5 Featured Modpacks on CurseForge. Tried and true, these modpacks add…. everything! From a dash of fantastical whimsy to your Minecraft world — whether through terrifying mythical beasts, incredibly cool magic spells, or unique magical items and artifacts — to technological advancements through and beyond your wildest imaginations — cloning all of your most precious resources, fluxducts and nuclear generation, machines to perform all of your most tedious baswork, teleporters, and more!

All the Mods 6 by ATMTeam

This pack is the latest of six total versions, starting with — you guessed it — All the Mods. This mod pack was first created as a private pack for the team and their friend group, which badly wanted to play a modpack option that offered something special and gave the players options for every kind of vastly different playstyle. The creators of this pack also went into it with the idea that they wanted to use mods which were lesser known, alongside with the more popular mods, so that talented smaller mod creators and developers could have their work get popularized as well. For the players, this means a change in flavor of the mods that we usually see in every single pack — that’s a win-win situation!

Of course, despite what its name suggests, this open world modpack doesn’t actually include all of the mods in the world. A mod pack like that would be impossible to run, especially when you take into account item and entity ID conflicts, and whatnot… let alone the toll on your system! However, All the Mods 6 does come pretty darn close, with a whopping total of over three hundred mods included with the base pack alone. As you might expect, with so many mods, it’s almost certain that everyone will be able to find something that interests them, whether farming, fighting, optimizing, exploring or adventuring. And who knows, maybe you or one of your friends will even be able to discover something new that they might enjoy in modpacks, due to the new and lesser – seen mods being included in the modpack. We’ve certainly found a ton of new mods through large modpacks like that that we ended up adding to our arsenal whenever we play! Check out some of the latest choice of the Team Visionary developers best Minecraft Modpacks

In this modpack, you can find popular mods such as Angel Rings by DenisMasterHerobrine, which adds in rings that allow you to fly. If you have played any kind of larger modpack, you can expect to have seen this at some point or another, especially if you have played a Skyblock modpack. Similarly, it comes with all the standard, must – have kitchen sink mods such as WAILA, NEI, Tinkers Construct, Advanced Energistics 2, and the like. However, along the popular mods, you can find some you might have never seen before, like Jumbo Furnace by Commoble. This mod allows you to craft and place down a jumbo furnace! This is a three by three multiblock that allows for you to smelt multiple items at once — a small quality of life update that can bring tons of convenience to your playthrough. 

Not only does this modpack use tons of cool and unique mods, it also uses its own edits and additions to the game. This greatly enhances the end game of the modpack, which is often what large modpacks find themselves lacking in. For instance, the ATM Star. This ATM Star grants you access to end game creative items, which will certainly be worth spending all of the time it takes to get the star. Find out what more this pack has to offer on their website; with 300 mods, it’ll be hard to cover it all in one article.

This modpack is currently released for game version 1.16.5 which some might know as the nether update! While it may not be the most recently released version, this modpack still lets you play with updated content, and more than makes up for it with its own content. This pack currently has over 2.9 million downloads on CurseForge and will certainly gain a lot more as time goes on. You can also expect many more modpack releases which will be for future and the most current versions of Minecraft.

Download All the Mods 6

The Pixelmon Modpack by PixelmonMod

Pokemon, the explosively popular Nintendo franchise, is a game that almost everyone has heard of in some way or another, and that many, many people cite as the source of their childhood nostalgia. It’s a global name that most, if not all, people recognize. However, for all its perfection, there are a few shortcomings in the Pokemon games — mainly that it offers little for fans of survival / open – world games, nor does it offer very much cooperative content for those who love sharing the gaming experience with their friends.

Pixelmon Reforged now brings that same nostalgic experience into Minecraft for you to experience all over again — or even for the first time, if you’re not already versed in the world of Pokemon. You start out in the normal Minecraft world, but the first thing you might notice is that there are now Pokemon wandering around in the universe — or “Pixelmon”, as they are referred to in the mod. These same Pixelmon are the exact ones that you can find in the games. They have the same movesets, types, and models as their Nintendo counterparts.

To find these Pixelmon, you’ll need to find out which areas or biomes they spawn in. Each Pixelmon has set spawns, spawn heights, and even times — for example, if you wanted to find the very best Pixelmon Lucario, you would need to find a Mountainous Forest biome at dawn or dusk. Even if you arrive at the location and search at the correct time, you might not find what you are looking for. This makes looking for Pixelmon challenging but also super rewarding! Why not take a look at some of the best resource packs for minecraft gamers, as chosen by Team Visionary.

The Pixelmons stats still follow how they would be in the actual Pokemon games. This means that you can grind for EVs/IVs to power your Pixelmon up and make them the strongest they can be… or breed for the perfect shiny Pokemon, or simply explore the world with the Pokemon that you enjoy the most! While Pixelmon does completely change how the game is played, you can still use normal in-game mechanics to assist you. To breed Pixelmon, you need to find and make specific blocks in order to have the right environment. For fighting types you will need two anvils, brick stairs, bricks, etc! Making sure that your beloved Pixelmon have the perfect environment to live in and breed for better Pixelmon in the future, 

Legendary Pokemon have always been the highlight of many players’ Pokemon journeys and it’s the same in Pixelmon.  Every so often a notification will appear in chat letting players know that a Legendary Pixelmon has spawned. The Pixelmon will always spawn near one of the players and the game lets the players know what biome it spawned in, inciting a frantic search on larger servers. Just like normal Pixelmon, legendaries will only spawn in certain biomes. If you are looking for one specific kind, you will need to camp out at those locations till you get lucky enough to encounter one!

If you’re looking to play Pokemon, there’s one official main modpack which includes Pixelmon Reforged. This modpack is The Pixelmon Modpack by PixelmonMod and can be found on Curseforge under the same name. The pack has over 1.6 million downloads and is one of the featured packs, and for good reason! If Pokemon was a part of your childhood, or one of your favorite games, you absolutely have to give Pixelmon a try!

Download Pixelmon Reforged, Pixelmon Generations or The Pixelmon Modpack

Valhelsia 2 by ValhelsiaTeam

Valhelsia 2 is a 1.15.2 modpack and the second of its name. This pack adds in popular and familiar mods that you might have played with before, but also some new and fresh mods, as well as some original mods which were created by Valhelsia Team to completely streamline and enhance the modded Minecraft experience. 

When you first create the world with this modpack, you will be able to select between three types of world generation. These three types are Biomes O’ Plenty, TerraForged, or Regular generation. No matter which custom option you choose, the world is sure to surprise you with tons of new features and beautiful world generation. This modpack also comes with plenty of new tools and weapons for you to try and experience, these tools include backpacks and tool belts. These are just a handful of the many that are added in, find out what else you can craft and find, and maybe find out which one is the strongest and defeat the bosses with it!

As said above, with this modpack, there are plenty of new biomes to explore. Not only do you have the massively popular Biomes O’ Plenty biomes which are in most if not all modpacks, but you also have plenty of new biomes from Team Abnormals, also thanks to Autumnity, Atmospheric, and The Energetic Expansion. You’ll definitely be hard pressed to find a modpack that puts so much emphasis on exploration — Valhelsia 2 is guaranteed to instill in your and your friends the wonder of exploring a beautiful, brand new Minecraft world that feels a little like your first time exploring the world of vanilla Minecraft in your first world. 

Along with the plenty of biomes to experience and explore, the pack also comes with plenty of new dimensions for you to try out. One of these is The Midnight, a terrifying addition to vanilla Minecraft. This dimension was created by Cryptic Mushroom with the goal of adding in a deliciously scary horror element into the game. This scary dimension is one of darkness, and the only light you’ll be able to find comes from the crystals and various forms of life you will be across the dimension. You’ll need to physically build and enter the portal to this dimension, meaning that players who don’t do so well with horror can opt to avoid this part of the modpack. However, even horror connoisseurs might find themselves hard pressed to fight some of the monstrosities in this deep darkness.

That being said, forging through this dimension is sure to help you progress through the modpack tons through its tantalizing loot and resources. Whether you’re looking for a tough fight or to explore an atmospheric environment in modded Minecraft, this dimension is an amazing addition and will add tons to do. 

When all of the exploring is done, you can spend time setting up automation workshops in order for you to spend more time exploring! With the mods like Mekanism, Immersive Engineering, Create, and RFTools, you will have plenty to do when it comes to automation. Explore each mod in detail and set it up to where you will never need to deal with the painful parts again, and can keep doing the parts you like.

This mod has over 2.3 million downloads and that is for good reason. Each mod is picked and designed to add in fantastic new options to your minecraft world and experience. Each time they go to select a mod, they look to select mods to provide interesting experiences for every kind of Minecraft player with adding as little redundancy as possible.

Download Valhesia 2

Hexxit

Enjoy the adventuring and exploring part of Minecraft, but vanilla just isn’t cutting it anymore on your fiftieth playthrough? More likely than not, you’ll be able to find what you are looking for, within the Hexxit modpack.

Hexxit is described as a dungeons and dragons-esque based pack, that focuses on bringing all the fun aspects of RPG games right into our favorite block game. Thanks to this carefully crafted and curated modpack, you can now embark on a classic fantasy adventure within the familiar confines of Minecraft. Spend your time exploring and clearing dungeons, spires and ruins full of loot and rare treasures! 

Hexxit aims to fill a niche by adding on to the current aspects of adventure and exploration that Vanilla Minecraft does so well. It introduces a new collection of mods that elevate Minecraft into a one stop shop for all your RPG needs.

The pack puts the thrill of the journey above all and stays true to the RPG code of Discover, Defeat and Loot! For one, this pack adds 3 full pages to the achievements tab, each new achievement encouraging players to chase a life full of adventuring and excitement. These achievements are sure to add countless of hours to your playtime, and that’s not even counting all the wondrous mods that the modpack actually adds!

The beauty of hexxit is though there is a achievement tab you aren’t bound by any time gates that might hold you back for days on end until you let your machines churn out the resources needed — which might sound real familiar to anyone who’s played a technological modpack. In Hexxit, the only thing that could possibly hold you back is your gear and the only way you can get better gear is to explore! 

Hexxit stays true to the original, wanderlust feeling of playing Minecraft, but adds in tons of RPG aspects that reward explorers and adventurers heavily. If you are looking for an additional challenge to Minecraft without changing far too much about the game, then this is the modpack you have been looking for. 

Another important plus for this pack is the fact that it only comes with 55 mods! This means that it isn’t nearly as big as some other popular packs; and so its will be easier to run this on older generations of computers and systems.

Download Hexxit

SevTech: Ages of the Sky by darkosto

Sevtech: Ages is an insanely popular modpack in the Minecraft modded community, and most players will have heard of, if not played, this modpack in particular. SevTech: Ages is a super unique modpack that focuses on content and progression, taking it all to a whole new level by introducing a vast number of mechanics which have not been seen outside of and before this modpack. These include hiding ore until unlocked, dynamically hidden items and recipes based on the progression the player is at, new mobs that show up as you progress through the stages, and so much more. The progression that this modpack adds in is known as ages. As the name might suggest, the whole idea of this modpack is to work your way through the ages and make it all the way to the end — achieving incredible technological feats like nuclear power, rocket ships, and the like along the way. 

You need to complete multiple goals in each age in order to progress and continue. Completing one age and unlocking the next one will also unlock recipes and ores that are needed for those recipes, before you unlock these things you will not be able to find them in your world. This kind of progression allows for slower completion speed and adds in factors which make you grind out the game. Upon spawning into the world, you’ll find yourself in the Stone Age of Minecraft, where everything seems similar to your average vanilla playthrough but with a few twists to make things a little more challenging.

One major goal of this pack is to introduce lesser – known mods into the normality of modded Minecraft. The modmakers do this by integrating these lesser – used mods into the gameplay loop of the modpack, making the goals to progress involve such mods, which not only introduces the mod, but also slows down progression by changing exactly how the modpack progresses. Trek through the Stone Age and keep moving, slowly gaining knowledge and learning new things. Sooner or later you will make it to the Futuristic Age where you will have automation and great machines which will do all of your bidding.

Sevtech Ages provides a great blend of mods that range from smaller and simpler mods in the earlier stone and bronze ages to crazy intricate mods that get introduced in the modern and futuristic ages. It also provides a great early game with tons of improvements and tweaks to exploration, offering a great ore dictionary and micro-crafting cleanliness — I noticed that it was one of the few modpacks out there that took the time to make sure only one of the same type of ore is used through the mod. 

(This was pleasantly surprising, since most other modpacks don’t bother removing duplicate ores, leading to about 7 different kinds of copper from various tech mods that can get real messy in an M.E. System!)

Another great thing that Sevtech Ages offers is clarity and progression. Many, many modpacks on the market are heavily based off of technological progression, but Sevtech Ages has taken this to the next level, putting copious amounts of extra effort into making sure the progression makes logical, historical and scientific sense.

Thanks to the developers’ focus on the progression system, they’ve also made it very easy to comprehend the progression map. As such, there’s very little guesswork involved in figuring out now exactly and what is needed to get to the next spot you need to be within the modpack.

Those who have been long time fans of Sevtech: Ages might also be pleased to find out that there’s been a new addition to the party! While what was said above is true for all SevTech modpacks, but SevTech: Ages of the Sky is a little different. Instead of having an open world which you can explore, you will be trapped on an island with nothing else around you; don’t forget that this island is surrounded by air! (Psst, it’s a Skyblock modpack.) Despite this, it doesn’t let up on difficulty at all, making this one of the most challenging Skyblock modpacks out there on the market.

This modpack has over 400k downloads and is certainly growing. This modpack does have lower download counts then the others on this list — the reason for this would be likely due to the slow progression of the modpack, a lot of people don’t enjoy that kind of playstyle and would rather reach the endgame past and do what they want from there. But don’t let these numbers deter you from trying out this modpack, it certainly will be hard and slow, but it has its own unique gameplay and style which makes up for that. If you do enjoy SevTech: Ages, be sure to try out some of SevTech’s other modpacks, such as their newest Ages of the Sky skyblock pack!

Download SevTech: Ages of the Sky

Conclusion

Part of why Minecraft is so incredibly appealing is its nostalgic quality, the familiarity that you can load into your new world and know exactly how everything works, know exactly what you want to do. 

However, sometimes, what makes Minecraft so appealing is that it is what the player makes it, that it’s so receptive to player creativity. And nothing demonstrates player creativity like player-made mods! 

Whether you’re a seasoned monster hunter or just looking for something to enhance your farm, we hope that there was something that caught your eye in our 5 Best Featured Minecraft Modpacks on Curseforge guide.