Hold Your Enemies Closer: Unbound – Breaking Minecraft’s Enchantment Limits
If you have ever stared at an enchantment table and wished you could combine Smite with Bane of Arthropods, or slap Infinity and Mending onto the same bow without choosing between them, you are not alone. Minecraft’s vanilla enchantment system is built around tough choices and mutual exclusivity. For every piece of gear, you are forced to pick a lane. Do you want Fortune or Auto-Smelt? Protection or Fire Protection? These decisions can stall your progress and leave you constantly swapping items in your hotbar. That is exactly why the Hold Your Enemies Closer: Unbound datapack exists. This optional add-on for the popular Hold Your Enemies Closer mod tears down the invisible walls between enchantments, giving players an unprecedented level of freedom to build the exact tools they want while keeping the survival grind intact.
What Is Hold Your Enemies Closer: Unbound?
At its core, Unbound is an optional datapack that layers on top of the Hold Your Enemies Closer mod. It does not replace the base experience; it expands it. The goal is simple: remove the restrictions that prevent certain enchantments from sharing space on your swords, bows, armor, and tools. You still need the experience levels, the lapis lazuli, and the anvil clicks. You still earn every enchantment the hard way. The difference is that once you have them, you are allowed to mix and match combinations that the base game considers off-limits. In practice, it feels like the creative mode mindset gently bleeding into survival mechanics, and the result is deeply satisfying for long-term players who are tired of compromise.
How Vanilla Enchantments Get Overhauled
The changes in Unbound touch nearly every category of gear. The datapack rewrites compatibility rules in a way that feels logical rather than chaotic. For example, Auto-Smelt and Fortune can now coexist on the same pickaxe. That means your mining trips become far more efficient because you no longer have to choose between instantly cooking ores and rolling for extra drops.
Armor protection sees one of the biggest shifts. Specific Protection enchantments like Fire Protection, Blast Protection, and Projectile Protection are no longer mutually exclusive with each other. You can finally build a set of specialized armor tailored to your environment without feeling like you are wasting an enchanting slot. General Protection remains locked away from specific Protections to prevent total immunity, but it receives a slight buff to keep it competitive against stacked specialized pieces.
Weapon enchantments open up in exciting ways too. Smite and Bane of Arthropods can now share a blade, turning your sword into a universal nightmare for both undead hordes and cave spiders. Density and Breach also drop their strange exclusivity. Sharpness stays mutually exclusive with other damage enchantments, but it hits noticeably harder to compensate for the new combinations available elsewhere. Even movement-based enchantments get love: Swift Swim and Swift Sneak no longer fight for boot space, and Infinity plus Mending can finally live together on the same bow.
Crossbows, Bows, and Creative Flexibility
Unbound does not stop at removing red tape. It actively swaps utility between ranged weapon types. Power, Infinity, Flame, Frost, Punch, and Pull can all be applied to crossbows, while Multishot and Piercing work on standard bows. Perhaps most importantly, Piercing and Multishot are no longer mutually exclusive, meaning you can build a bow or crossbow that fires multiple penetrating shots. For players who live in the bow slot during endgame raids or multiplayer PvP, this completely changes how you approach ranged combat.
When you are putting together your next modded playthrough, remember that this mod can be easily installed via the foxygame.net launcher — a convenient, flexible, and modern Minecraft launcher where you can download mods right from the menu. Skipping the manual file hunting means you spend less time configuring folders and more time testing out your new Piercing Multishot bow.
New Enchantments Worth Chasing
Beyond opening up vanilla combinations, Unbound introduces two brand-new enchantments that fit seamlessly into the sandbox. Fleetfeet is a boot enchantment that grants a slight movement speed boost. It is subtle, but in PvP or large-scale exploration, that extra momentum adds up. Magic Protection is the other standout, applicable to any armor piece. It reduces damage tagged as minecraft:witch_resistant_to, which covers a surprising amount of magical threats in the game. The Warden’s Sonic Boom is the deliberate exception, since it bypasses enchantments entirely, so you still need to respect the deep dark.
For magic-focused modpacks, the datapack also includes Ars Nouveau integration. Custom recipes for all Hold Your Enemies Closer enchantments are added automatically, and they smartly disable themselves if Ars Nouveau is not loaded. No broken recipes, no clutter, just clean compatibility.
Do Not Forget Your Companions
One easily overlooked feature is the expansion of armor logic to your animal companions. Horse and wolf armors now accept chestplate and boot enchantments, and they actually function. Your horse can benefit from Frost Walker or Protection while crossing lava lakes or fighting off Hoglin herds, and your tamed wolves become significantly tankier during village raids. It is a small touch that makes the whole world feel more consistent.
Is Unbound Right for Your World?
Hold Your Enemies Closer: Unbound is not about handing you free power. It is about removing arbitrary barriers that stall creativity. Whether you want a crossbow that punches and pierces, boots that make you swim and sneak faster, or a full set of armor layered with every specific Protection in the book, this datapack respects the time you put into enchanting while admitting that choice paralysis is not fun. If you are ready to rethink what your enchanting table can do, Unbound is the upgrade your inventory has been waiting for.