Modpacks in Minecraft are incredible feats,
as back in the day before the days of forge, fabric, and other modloaders making things
easy, it was almost impossible to combine mods together compatibility wise due to
many mods editing the same class files in minecraft’s vanilla code.. However, a few
brave souls ventured into this space and created minecraft’s earliest modpacks.
Let’s talk about these ancient beasts, as well as some that are a little more recent,
that paved the way for minecraft modpacks as we know them today. This is 10 ancient minecraft
modpacks that you may have forgotten about. Starting out with the absolute godfather and king
of modpacks, the overarching Technic. While the name technic is still popular and you probably
didn’t forget about it, it deserves to be talked about as the pioneer in the modpack realm.
You may have heard of the technic launcher, which aims to compete with other modpack programs
like curseforge and the like, but before that, a long time ago, way back in minecraft beta 1.5
ish back in 2010, technic was its own modpack. Featuring absolute golden hall of fame minecraft
mods such as mo creatures, industrialcraft, and millenaire, the point of technic was to
mechanize and automate certain things about minecraft, and reach some sort of industrial end
game to your world. It was incredible, and well, was actually an accident. I was able to find a
reddit thread of the original creator of technic talking about it, and he described it as him
just mashing together things to see if it worked, and then threw a name on that mesh of mods.
It’s kind of amazing how that became one of the biggest modpacks in history, being covered by
massive creators of the time period, and becoming an entire brand with offshoots of other modpacks
and online series you probably remember and love such as the legendary Tekkit, which is basically
the multiplayer form of technic. All started by some dude plugging things into minecraft.jar to
see what happened. Sadly, the original original, the beta technic pack has been lost forever,
though you could probably just make one yourself by smashing all those mods together again, due
to the fact that the mods included in it weren’t included with permission, and many of them had
statements to not distribute them in this way, so the owner was forced to take it down, and
despite many old modpacks surviving on the modern technic launcher, the OG is gone forever.
Doesn’t make the memories any less sweet though. Moving onto something a little more recent than
technic - Crash Landing. Crash Landing was a forge modpack made in 1.6.4 that aimed to mimic
well, a crash landing onto the minecraft world, as it drops you in an extra hardcore survival
style experience. It has quests as a progression system using the hardcore questing mod, all
while upping the danger level with dehydration and overheating as a risk. The only way to not
permanently lose the world is to use the Sync mod with the shell constructor and literally
clone yourself before you die for the first time. It was difficult but rewarding, grindy but
fun once you get to the point of not worrying about food and water, and a lot of people
remember this one fondly. Sadly the creator, 1skandar never updated it past 1.6.4, which is
the case with a lot of these old modpacks. You can still easily play it on curseforge luckily
however. Considering how modpacks work, obviously the updates depend on the mods inside the pack
updating too. In the case of crash landing, many of them sadly never did and fell victim
to the mod dark ages. And while there are many, many hardcore modpacks out there, crash
landing was the first experience for many, and none will capture the feeling of loading
it up for the first time back in 2013. Another ancient one, another one on the laundry
list of mods and modpacks the yogscast made famous, all the way back in beta 1.5, now that’s
what i call minecraft! by pudding huxtable. This was another mashed up modpack with adventure
and lively elements, that also came with a twist - it also included a custom map to
play the pack on. It had classic mods like millenaire and toomanyitems, airships and sky
pirates, but also funny mods like peach dudes, that adds live peaches to trees that run away
from you when you try to catch them. It made the minecraft world feel more alive, which if you were
a beta player back in the day, you can appreciate how crazy this was for the time, as back then
worlds were incredibly empty with no villages or structures or npcs outside of hostile and friendly
mobs at the time. Compatibility issues aside, the way it completely changed the game at a time when
it was in its infancy is crazy in and of itself. Pudding huxtable would update it once to beta 1.6,
then never again, leaving now that’s what i call minecraft with its own mark on minecraft beta,
and truly becoming another pioneer for modpacks as we know them today. The awesome thing is
the wayback machine not only preserved the original website, but also the download itself,
so you can still relive the days of this one by loading it up in something like multimc. I’ve
linked that and the rest of these ones below. And speaking of the yogscast, who literally
make tons of appearances in every one of my old minecraft things list videos, they
had their own modpack way back in the day, which is probably the most documented and
easy to research out of any on this list, despite being technically deleted from existence.
This is Yogbox, one of the first ever yogscast branded minecraft related things. It was
originally made for minecraft beta 1.7.3 and at its death and last update, official release
1.2, it contained 19 mods, such as rei’s minimap, battle towers, airships of course, mo creatures,
and the star of the video, Millenaire. Seriously this one should’ve gotten an academy award
for compatibility back in the day. Of course, lewis and simon made yet another legendary
series on the yogbox modpack. It was made available on the aforementioned technic launcher,
however, and i couldn’t really figure out why, maybe it was due to restrictions or limitations
set by mod developers of the pack’s mods, but it was removed entirely from the technic
launcher. There’s a yogbox 2.0, which is a fanmade recreation that was actually given the
stamp of approval. Anyway, the yogbox mod was many people’s introductions to modpacks back in the
day, because lets face it, they were the absolute kings of the minecraft content creation sphere in
the beta days, so of course their modpack would become the most popular pretty much instantly.
It leaves a mark for sure in minecraft history, and will go down forever as one of the most
recognizable and remembered names in modpacks. Going to a more recent one now, the next one is
Sevtech Ages. This one was created for version 1.12, and has stayed in 1.12 to this day. I love
the concept of this one, and despite it not being old per se, it definitely came and went with the
wind. The modpack, as its name suggests, has you progressing through an age system, like age of
empires meets minecraft. It’s super extensive, giving minecraft, a game with inherently
no purpose, a sense of progress, discovery, and meaning if you’re into that sort of thing. It
does things like lock ores until you unlock them, dynamically hidden items and recipes based
on what age you’re in, and having mob spawns go with progression as well. The further
along you are, the more quantity and more difficult the mobs will be. The age progression
is handled via custom achievements, so reaching those will unlock new things in your world. You
start with nothing, and end up gaining access to features slowly over time. It definitely ranks
up there among difficult or challenge modpacks as one of the greatest ever made. The best part
is too, it has full multiplayer functionality, so you can enjoy this one with your friends.
And since its locked into time forever, you can still go back to 1.12, one of the
most iconic versions for mods in history, and play it just as it used to be. I wish it
would get updated, but as with most of these, they are at the mercy of the mods they
contain following in their footsteps. Now that we’re halfway through the list, a reminder that i make tons of nostalgic
minecraft content like this, so remember to subscribe and also join my discord so you
don’t miss anything or any news. Thank you! The next on the list is another ancient
modpack that was made for the yogscast back in the day. This was hack-slash-mine, an
RPG style dungeon crawling modpack originally made in 2012 for version 1.2. It had you
selecting a class when you start out, choosing from warrior, ranger, or mage,
each with their own set of abilities and starter items, and heading into a world full
of generated dungeons, with new loot, items, mobs, and magical things added to minecraft. It
has skill progression, NPCs, radar, new biomes, the list goes on. It’s extensive and extremely
impressive for this old of a minecraft version. This was the first time we had really ever seen
something like this back in 2012, there were singular mods that added magic and rpg elements,
but never something thrown together into a modpack like hack slash mine was. The interesting thing
is, the developer Frizzil has updated it as recently as 2018, not to a new version, but making
it more compatible with modern java versions. Not java minecraft, java the actual program. It also
still works on the technic launcher to this day, so fortunately you can go play it if you want and
it will still work. Again, despite being so old, it’s still amazingly fun and a great way to enjoy
a nostalgia trip if you played it back in the day. Another challenge modpack and one of my all time
favorites just because of how creative it is, the regrowth modpack for version 1.7. As the name
vaguely suggests, the minecraft world and all it’s liveliness and nature has turned to a complete
wasteland, void of any plant life at all. It is the player’s responsibility to learn how to grow
things back and slowly turn the world into what is recognizable in vanilla. It’s challenging yet
rewarding, and like the other ones on this list, gives the player a sense of purpose that may be
lost in vanilla minecraft. You start out with your own little oasis amongst the infinite dead
land, and grow it as much as you possibly can. You can find tiny remnants of old plant life dead
in the wasteland, that you try to harvest seeds from to get started. It’s such a cool take on the
game, and reminds me of other survival games with the same concept like dont starve or something.
Like the Sevtech ages pack, regrowth is available to be easily played with your friends, and is
basically drag and drop as far as server hosting goes. There have been many cool youtube series
made from it in the multiplayer space. Sadly, regrowth was never updated past 1.7.10, but you
can still play it on curseforge and everything still works perfectly. I don’t think there’s been
another modpack made like it since that time, but if there is, leave a comment down
below because I love the concept that much! One of the most legendary and recognize feed
the beast modpacks ever made was Obscurity. Obscurity was also in version 1.7.10, and has
a rich backstory with the combination of dozens of minecraft mods. The player is tasked to save
the world, a world that has quote “begun to feel the effects of man’s hunger for resources and
ruthless destruction of the environment. People have begun to worry about what will be left for
the future. Something has to be done... A group of highly trained physicists have been working
on something new and very dangerous... World Compression. Although our intention was to save
the Earth it seems it may now be trapped. You are now the only one who can save us all. There’s
no turning back, you must save the world as time is running out.” It actually won an award in a
feed the beast competition in 2015, and for good reason. It’s hardcore, challenging, interesting,
and a new take on survival never before seen. You have a quest log to keep track of the saving
the world task. I just love the story line, it makes you feel more immersed and it makes
every decision feel important. Definitely one of the most polished modpacks ever made. Obscurity
has never been updated, but according to its page, there is something in the works. Whether or not
we’ll see a comeback remains to be seen though. I’ve covered this next one before in a standalone
video, but I’m adding it to this list because it’s not only super old but also because I like
it so much. This could not be more ancient, as its literally the first known modpack ever
created in minecraft. This is zombe’s modpack, which contains a few individual mods that
help you essentially cheat in some of the earliest versions of minecraft. And by earliest
versions of minecraft, i mean literally alpha 1.2, a version that barely had any modding at all,
let alone an entire modpack added to the game in the times when the code was the most unstable.
In fact it predated the next confirmed modpack by 3 months and quite a few versions. It allows you
to fly, create custom crafting recipes, drive minecarts like mario kart, the very first known
teleportation cheat, and more tweaks like that. On my beta 1.7.3 SMP, we have permissions setup to
where the staff team uses zombe’s modpack as a mod tool. By the way you should join the beta smp via
my discord in the description. Zombe’s modpack is not only a historical minecraft treasure, but
a roadmap to modpacks as we know them today, as the developer, tanzanite, literally
pioneered not only the phrase modpack, but the method to putting mods together to make
it work. This led to the idea of the modloader, think Risugami’s modloader, to bridge the gap of
compatibility even further. Obviously from there, things took off and curseforge and other
modloaders and launchers practically run the modding scene. And it’s all thanks to this goofy,
clunky modpack from 2010. If you’d like the full incredible story of zombe’s modpack, definitely
check out my full retrospective from last year. I’ve mentioned feed the beast a couple times
in this video, and it absolutely deserves a spot on this list. Now, if you look up feed the
beast today you’ll find a massive collection of modpacks, a big website, a wiki, a launcher, and
an entire large subreddit of the same name. Feed the beast has become the haven and go to spot
for nostalgic and old modpack preservation, but it didn’t start out that way. No, feed the
beast had humble beginnings as a modpack itself in version 1.2.5, and a very interesting one at that,
as not only did it feature a bunch of old mods, but it also was packaged and meant to play with
an entire custom map. This map would see many iterations as feed the beast was tweaked and made
into many different varieties and difficulties, like feed the beast insanity or feed the beast
infinity which was like bedrock skyblock, but the first one took place in a pyramid
that gave players a series of challenges, making you create items to progress through the
pyramid and put them in chests. This is why it was called feed the beast, as the pyramid was the
beast, and you were feeding it the items. The name stuck and is one of the most recognizable things
in minecraft history. It featured mainly tech mods like industrial craft, factorization, and advanced
machines, but also classics like twilight forest and rei’s minimap. Like I said, this exploded into
popularity with many variations and iterations, especially when played by the hall of fame
creators stampylonghead and ballistic squid back in their very early days. Honestly, the story
of feed the beast deserves its own video entirely, but the fact of the matter is, having the humble
beginnings of a relatively simple modpack turn into one of the most organized modding systems
in all of minecraft is an incredible feat. What other modpacks do you remember that weren’t
on this list? Let me know in the comments below. I make a lot of nostalgic content like this, so
if you’d like to see more, make sure of course to subscribe and like the video as it helps
me out a ton. I love you all so so very much, go play some aether mod today, and i’ll see
you in the next video. Special thanks to my channel members on these signs, especially
my knights ivinnium, fantic, christhebear, ponytailmc, feritwolf95, caidentmg, melon
siggi, thomas wellman-boyd, and crimson, and of course my beloved lord members names
unknown, jakep2013, spelical, alas, ayblair, liliablue, gunslinger zach, the ab railfan,
jazz this, tourwillem, and dirty dan.
