The Hordes is a mod that adds a new level of difficulty when encountering the undead in Minecraft. This mod will now trigger waves of zombies and other infected monsters to attack your base on certain nights. The waves will last from midnight until the morning and you will have to fight off the onslaught or figure out a safe way to hide until the attack is over. The nights that will trigger a horde can also be configured to whenever and however often you want them to occur and there are also some additional configurations for other mobs that can be infected as well as allowing zombies to be able to attack even in sunlight.

You will know when a horde is going to start in two ways. You will initially hear a faint howl from the horde which is typically up to 20 zombies at a time in sporadic intervals throughout the night. And then you will also see a cryptic, red message appear that says, “You hear the howls of a nearby horde”. This will be the best time to prepare yourself for several waves of zombies that are all zeroing in on you or your team specifically.

These zombies are the same as standard zombies that can and will spawn separately from the hordes but the shear number of them will start to get a bit overwhelming. But the mod does allow for adding other mobs and animals from the game or other mods to the config list and then the hordes can be made up of a random mix of difficult enemies to fight. This mod is a perfect one to add to a multiplayer server since you will very likely need all the help you can get and fighting wave after wave by yourself could prove deadly and quick. The zombies will continue to spawn the next waves even if you haven’t fought off the previous wave so you will want to take out as many as you can and as quickly as you can.

You will also see a message that will alert you that the current horde has stopped and you don’t hear any more howls. This simply means the current wave of zombies has stopped but you will need to prepare for any additional waves that will come until the break of dawn. This mod also disables the ability to sleep while a horde is currently attacking. When you try to get into a bed you will see the message, “A feeling of impending dread prevents you from sleeping”. This means that you have to slay every one of the waves of zombies and you won’t be able to simply go to sleep and let it all blow over.

This mod also disables the effect of the sun on zombies as well as skeletons. So neither one will ignite when the sun comes up and this poses an even bigger challenge because you won’t be able to rely on daylight to kill any remaining enemies. There is also ten days in game in between the next hordes so you have a bit of time to prepare for the next attack. This setting can also be customized in the config file and you can set the time between hordes as well as how long they last and many other options to suit your needs.

There is another neat aspect to this mod that incorporates infection from a zombie bite on to players or villagers and even some animals like horses. You will see an infected icon in the top right when you are infected and you have five minutes until you or any other infected will turn into a zombie unless they die first. You can eat a golden apple to reverse the infection but if you die then you will respawn as normal except a zombie version of you will still be wandering with the horde if any are left. The golden apple will only work on players, though, so any infected villagers will need to be cured the normal way and there is also a config option to prevent villagers from ever being cured.

This mod truly adds a fun and challenging aspect to enemy attacks in the game and can make for a very entertaining multiplayer event. With the ability to customize so many aspects of the specific triggers of this mod, there’s seemingly no end to what you can do as a zombie survival style game. You can set the difficulty of each wave to increase over time as well as randomize the hostile mobs that will attack with each wave. There is a lot of potential here for a very fun side game within Minecraft.