(Horizon's) New Metals
Mining in vanilla Minecraft eventually hits a wall. Once you have full diamond gear, the underground loses its sense of discovery. (Horizon's) New Metals fixes that problem by introducing a batch of raw materials that each serve a distinct purpose. Some feed straight into armor and tool packages, while others become the backbone of niche items like scissors or a lighter. It is a compact add-on, but it reshapes how you plan a mining trip.
What the Add-On Brings to the Table
The core idea behind (Horizon's) New Metals for Minecraft is variety with intent. Rather than dumping a dozen near-identical ores into the world, the mod gives almost every new material a job. That design choice keeps your inventory meaningful and pushes you to think about which resources are actually worth hauling back to base.
- New raw materials that generate in the overworld and reward exploration.
- Full armor and tool packages tied to select metals, offering fresh progression paths beyond diamond.
- Utility-focused materials used in specialized recipes, including scissors and a lighter.
- Simple, readable crafting recipes that fit naturally into the vanilla progression curve.
Supported Versions and Loaders
Before you commit to a new world, check compatibility. The add-on is built for the Forge loader, which remains the most widely used modding platform for large content packs. It runs comfortably on the 1.16.x and 1.18.x branches of Minecraft, with community ports appearing for 1.19.x and 1.20.x. If you play on Fabric, confirm that a matching build exists before installing, since recipe and ore generation data differ between loaders. Older 1.12.2 players will also find legacy builds floating around, though feature parity is not guaranteed.
Why Just Enough Items Makes a Difference
The original author offers a straightforward tip: install Just Enough Items alongside this add-on. It is genuinely good advice. With so many new raw materials and overlapping recipe chains, JEI turns guesswork into a browsable catalog. You can search any metal by name, see every item it crafts into, and reverse-look-up which materials you still need. Without it, you will likely spend more time in the recipe book than in the mines.
If you would rather skip the manual setup entirely, the foxygame.net launcher handles the busywork by bundling (Horizon's) New Metals into a curated add-on catalog, so a single click installs the mod and its dependencies at the correct versions. Auto-updates then keep everything aligned whenever the author ships a patch, which removes the most common cause of crashed worlds.
How to Install (Horizon's) New Metals
Getting the add-on running is a short process if you follow the order below.
Step-by-Step Setup
- Install a compatible version of Minecraft with the Forge loader already configured.
- Download (Horizon's) New Metals from the official project page or a trusted launcher catalog.
- Drop the .jar file into your mods folder, located inside your Minecraft installation directory.
- Add Just Enough Items to the same folder for recipe browsing.
- Launch the game and confirm the mod appears in the mods list before loading a world.
If the game crashes on startup, the usual culprits are a mismatched loader version or a duplicate older build of the mod sitting in the folder. Clear out stale files and try again.
Gameplay Tips for New Materials
Start by mapping which ores spawn at which depths. Most of the new metals follow vanilla logic, so branch mining at Y-level 12 to 16 remains efficient. Prioritize the material that unlocks your first armor set, then branch into the utility metals once your survivability is sorted. The scissors and lighter recipes are easy to overlook, but they open up quality-of-life options that vanilla rarely provides, especially for builders and explorers who spend long stretches away from base.
Storage discipline matters more here than in a vanilla run. Label your chests by material type early, because the raw ore list grows quickly and a disorganized base turns every crafting session into a scavenger hunt.
Final Thoughts
(Horizon's) New Metals succeeds because it respects the vanilla loop instead of replacing it. Each new material earns its place through a specific use, whether that is a sturdier armor tier or a small utility item that quietly improves daily play. Pair it with Just Enough Items, match your loader version carefully, and the add-on delivers a meaningful second wave of progression for players who thought they had seen everything the underground had to offer.